The median ages of populations are expected to continue rising over the coming decades. East Nanjing Road, Shanghai, China. Credit: Shutterstock.
Opinion by Joseph Chamie (portland, usa)
Inter Press Service
PORTLAND, USA, Mar 27 (IPS) – Yes, lower the retirement ages! That is the key message that workers worldwide are conveying to their governments.
Rather than increasing retirement ages as many governments are now proposing, men and women worldwide want to stop working well before they reach old age, which is approximately 60 years.
After toiling for years in factories, offices, shops, backrooms, vehicles, fields, etc., most workers around the world want to stop working before they reach old age. That desire translates into exiting the labor force and receiving a government pension at approximately age 55 years.
Government officials, economic advisors, business leaders and many others calling for raising retirement ages will no doubt consider lower retirement ages to be preposterous, verging on financial blasphemy and leading to an economy’s doom. Some have argued that lowering retirement ages places an unaffordable and unfair burden on taxpayers.
On the contrary, rather than leading to an economy’s ruination, a retirement age of 55 years may usher in a “retirement renaissance” resulting in untold benefits to societies worldwide.
The renaissance will enhance and extend the quality of life for those in retirement. It is also expected to decrease unemployment rates, lead to increased motivation among younger employees to continue working until retirement, provide businesses with energetic, healthy, well-trained youthful workers as well as foster cross generational interactions, recreation, hobbies and cultural activities.
In addition, the renaissance may contribute to raising low fertility levels by making childcare more readily available. Today two-thirds of the world’s population lives in a country where the fertility rate is below the replacement level of about 2.1 births per woman.
The retirement renaissance will permit retired men and women with adult children to assist with childcare and related activities. With grandparents available for childcare, young working mothers and fathers can be expected to be more favorably disposed to having additional children.
The protests, demonstrations and objections in Asia, Europe, North America and elsewhere reflect the public’s resistance to working until, as they claim, broken-down and close to near death. Large majorities of workers have clearly conveyed their opposition to their respective government proposals requiring people to work well into old age before they are entitled to receive their promised retirement pensions.
The various projected insolvencies of government pension systems, often cited as justification for raising retirement ages to record breaking high levels, are often dismissed by workers and their supporters as irrelevant. The insolvencies, workers contend, are simply financial excuses concocted by government officials and their wealthy supporters, who object to paying their fair share of taxes, to justify their goal of raising retirement ages and cutting pension benefits.
In addition to higher taxes on the wealthy and large corporations, workers argue that governments have plenty of financial resources at their disposal to permit lowering retirement ages and financing pension programs. Some contend that countries could substantially reduce their defense spending and redirect the substantial savings to retirement pension programs.
Admittedly, it is certainly the case that on average people are living longer than in the recent past and the proportions of elderly are increasing. However, those increases in longevity have not been shared equally across populations.
In general, those with high incomes have experienced longevity gains, while low earners have seen little gain in longevity. Moreover, workers contend that living longer should not translate into working longer and receiving reduced retirement pension benefits.
Both men and women spend decades working at jobs that they don’t particularly enjoy and for bosses they loathe. Many would argue that it only seems fair and reasonable to have several decades available to workers permitting them to do what they desire before they eventually face death. People are largely opposed to working until they are tired, bed ridden and unable to enjoy the remaining years of their life.
It is also the case that women on average live several years longer than men. At age 65, for example, at the global level women live close to three years longer than men. Even larger differences in life expectancy at age 65 between women and men are observed in other countries, such as France and Japan at nearly four and five years, respectively (Figure 1).
Source: United Nations.
Taking into account those well documented sex differences in longevity, the retirement age for women could be several years greater than that for men, perhaps 57 and 54 years, respectively. Such a difference between women and men would help to ensure gender equality in the number of retirement years.
In addition, neither men nor women should be forced to work beyond the recommended lower official retirement ages for men and women. Of course, exceptions should be permitted and lower official retirement ages should not bar individuals from working in old age if they choose to do so.
Some heads of state, elected officials, government bureaucrats, investors, business owners, academics, the wealthy, entertainers as well as many others are choosing for personal reasons it appears to work beyond official retirement ages. Some current heads of state, for example, are well beyond the official retirement ages of their respective countries with few of their constituents objecting (Figure 2).
Source: Author’s compilation.
With the world population reaching a record-breaking 8,000,000,000 people, the number of young women and men available to work is the largest ever. Whereas the proportion of the world’s population between ages 18 to 59 was 52 percent in 1950 and numbered 1.3 billion, that proportion increased to 56 percent in 2022 and numbered 4.5 billion.
There’s no denying the fact that the world’s population is older than in the past. Over the past 70 years, the proportion of the world’s population aged 60 years and older has nearly doubled, from 8 percent in 1950 to 14 percent in 2022. However, the increase in the proportion elderly is offset by the decrease in proportion of children below age 18 years from 40 percent in 1950 to 30 percent in 2022 (Figure 3).
Source: United Nations.
Also, some believe that rapidly improving technologies, including robots,androids and artificial intelligence, can complement and broaden a country’s labor supply. Those technologies are expected to offset reductions in the size of the labor force as people retire at around 55 years of age.
Many governments have enacted or are seriously considering raising retirement ages. Increases in today’s retirement ages are viewed by workers as nothing more than pension benefits cuts.
Proposals for raising retirement ages are viewed by workers as relying on faulty actuarial analyses of bankruptcy, dire warnings of pension insolvency and catchy phrases such as “Vivre plus longtemps, travailler plus longtemps” (“live longer, work longer”).
Moreover, conservative government officials in general are resistant to raising taxes on the wealthy and large corporations. However, many of those officials are favorably disposed to raising retirement ages, which would result in reductions in pension benefits. Also, some government officials have rejected calls to return retirement ages back to 60 years.
In sum, in addition to meeting the wishes of billions of working men and women who want to retire well before reaching old age, lower official retirement ages of approximately 57 years for women and 54 years for men may usher in a “retirement renaissance” that could result in untold benefits to societies worldwide.
Joseph Chamie is a consulting demographer, a former director of the United Nations Population Division and author of numerous publications on population issues, including his recent book, “Population Levels, Trends, and Differentials”.
MINNESOTA, USA, Mar 27 (IPS) – The dark road to democracy began with the manner in which the Kenyan Presidential election of August 2022 was handled. Today, the Church in Kenya is calling for dialogue between the ruling regime and the opposition. The issue here is not about dialogue, but the legitimacy of the President William Ruto. The situation in Kenya reminds me of a similar situation in Rwanda in early 90s.
In 1994, the World Council of Churches, the Lutheran World Federation and Africa Council of Churches sent a combined mission to Rwanda. The mission’s findings reported that ” the churches in Rwanda have been discredited by aligning themselves far too much with the former Hutu dominated regime and its tribal politics”.
According to the report, one member of the mission stated, ” In every conversation we had with the government and the church people alike, the point was brought home to us that the church itself stands tainted not by passive indifference but errors of commission as well”. Unfortunately, the church in Kenya today is aligning themselves with the ruling regime.
The Kenyan Tragedy
Seven months after Presidential election in Kenya, every organization, institution and government which had kept silent as if the Kenyan Presidential election were free and fair began to speak. The current crisis in Kenyan could have been prevented.
The attitude adopted by African Union (AU), the international community, governments, international press and human rights organizations after last year’s presidential election made the current situation in Kenya inevitable. In a democracy, except with his own consent, no person shall be hindered in the enjoyment of his or her rights to assemble freely and associate with other persons or to impart ideas.
The Kenyan regime has to come to terms with this realty.
In the 21st century, the forces against the development and sustenance of democracy and the enjoyment of human rights by the citizens of Africa are strong and powerful. A political map of Africa to show states ruled by the gun and states ruled by the ballot, if made, will show only a handful of the latter. Such map will not. however, show the real human tragedy which the gunmen and their supporters and apologists have wrought the African peoples.
In Africa, oppressive regimes, and most of those regimes are illegitimate like the case of Kenya today, is the driving force of conflict. The use of the gun like the current situation in Kenya today is only a short- term remedy and also creates a chain reaction to the problem.
Promoting democracy in Africa does not only serve moral interests of the United States of America but it helps to prevent war, reduce the influx of refugees. Preventing wars in Africa and creating a peaceful democratic society is cheaper than fighting wars.
When General MacArthur conquered Japan, he wrote a new constitution for the people of Japan. This constitution became the pillar of Japanese democracy. The United States and other nations of Western Europe helped Japan build its economy.
Today, Japan is the leading economic power house in Asia. If this worked for Japan, a nation without natural resources, how about Africa with abundant natural resources? General MacArthur did not do it alone, but it took the commitment on part of the Japanese people to rebuild their nation.
In the case of Kenyan’s current crisis, it is important to address the issue Hon. Raila Odinga has raised about the server to bring transparency in the election process. Kenyan people need to address the issue of accountability, corruption and transparency.
The policy makers in Washington should revive an effective policy that will enforce political reforms and curb electoral malpractices across Africa. Overhaul bilateral relationships with individual countries and attached conditions to U.S. foreign aid.
Such conditions should include human rights violations, political reforms, electoral reforms, accountability, good governance and transparency. Washington should emphasize respect of territorial integrity of each nation. No country in Africa should have the power to invade another country for selfish interests. A civilized nation cannot engage in military coups, rebel activities, political assassinations and massive human rights violations.
The United States has a responsibility to promote democracy and good governance across the continent of Africa. For any democracy to develop and mature there should be accountability, transparency and an effective constitution which reflects the will of the people and allows political freedom such as (a) Freedom of speech and expression, which includes freedom of the press and other media. (b) Freedom to assemble and to demonstrate together with others peacefully and unarmed and to petition. (c) Freedom of association which shall include the freedom to form and join associations or unions, including trade unions and political and other civic organizations.
Rev. Gabriel Odima is President & Director of Political Affairs, Africa Center for Peace & Democracy, White Bear Lake, MN 55110 USA
E-mail: [email protected]
Women in the health and care sector face a larger gender pay gap than in other economic sectors, earning on average of 24 per cent less than peers who are men, according to a joint report by the International Labour Organization (ILO) and the World Health Organization (WHO). Credit: ILOGENEVA (ILO News)
Opinion by Roopa Dhatt, Ebere Okereke (washington dc / london)
Inter Press Service
WASHINGTON DC / LONDON, Mar 16 (IPS) – Women health workers are more than two thirds of the health workforce and represent 90% of the world’s frontline health workers, yet hold less than a quarter of senior leadership roles – a situation which is unfair and a significant risk for global health security.
Despite five years of ad hoc commitments, our new report The State of Women and Leadership in Global Health shows few and isolated gains, while overall progress on women’s representation in global health governance has remained largely unchanged.
The report, launched on March 16, assessed global data together with deep dives into country case studies from India, Nigeria and Kenya. It found that women lost significant ground in health leadership during the COVID-19 pandemic.
A Women in Global Health study calculated that 85% of 115 national COVID-19 task forces had majority male membership. At global level, during the World Health Organisation’s Executive Board meeting in January 2022 just 6% of government delegations were led by women (down from a high point of 32% in 2020).
It appears that during emergencies like the pandemic, outdated gender stereotypes resurface with men seen as ‘natural leaders’.
A key and disturbing finding in the report was that women belonging to a socially marginalized race, class, caste, age, ability, ethnicity, sexual orientation, gender identity or with migrant status, face far greater barriers to accessing and retaining formal leadership positions in health.
Without women from diverse backgrounds in decision-making positions, health programs lack insight and professional experience from the women health workers who largely deliver the health systems in their countries.
Expanding the representation of diverse leaders in health is not just a matter of fairness, it also contributes to better decision-making by bringing in a wider range of knowledge, talent and perspectives.
Further, the report shows there is a ‘broken pipeline’ between women working in national health systems and those working in global health. As long as men are the majority of health leaders at national level and systemic bias against women continues, the global health leadership pipeline will continue to funnel more men into positions with global decision-making power.
The issues women face in national health systems are then reproduced at the global level where women are excluded from political processes and marginalized from the most senior appointments.
A deep dive of case studies in India, Nigeria and Kenya confirms that women are held back from health leadership by cultural gender norms, discrimination and ineffectual policies which don’t redress historic inequalities.
The similarities in the barriers faced by women health workers from very different socio-economic and cultural contexts are marked, indicating widespread systemic bias right across the global health workforce.
The consequences of locking women out of leadership represents a moral and justice issue, and also a strategic loss to the health sector. Through the pandemic, we saw how safe maternity and sexual and reproductive health services were deprioritized and removed from essential services in some countries, with catastrophic consequences for women and girls.
We saw women health workers unpaid or underpaid, and we saw dangerous conditions escalate as community health workers were sent to enforce lockdown, do contact tracing or provide services in unsafe conditions with no forethought given to providing security.
The findings of our report show that systemic change goes beyond numbers in gender parity leadership. What is needed is a transformative framework for action involving all genders from institutional, to national and global level.
Recommendations to drive transformative approaches include:
Men must ‘lean out’ and become visible role models in challenging stereotypes to make way for qualified women
Normalization of paternity leave to shift gender norms and reduce the burden of care of women
Governments taking targeted actions to fast track the number of diverse women in health leadership roles through quotas and all-women shortlists, particularly for senior global health leadership roles that have never been held by a woman
Institutions must be intentional about creating and maintaining a pipeline for women to move into leadership
Measurable actions such as mentorship, shadowing / pairing and deputizing opportunities should be created and monitored to ensure women are visible for promotion opportunities
A zero tolerance of discrimination towards pregnancy
Supported flexible working options for all parents and carers
Investing in women is not only the right thing to do, but it also makes good business sense. When we get it right, we can unlock a “triple gender dividend in health” that includes more resilient health systems, improved economic welfare for families and communities, and progress towards gender equality.
The lessons of the pandemic have taught us much about the value of the health workforce and even more about the value of health workers. They are mostly women. It’s time for them to take their rightful roles in leadership.
Dr Roopa Dhatt is Executive Director and Co-Founder Women in Global Health, Washington, DC and Dr Ebere Okereke is Snr Health Adviser Tony Blair Institute London & incoming CEO Africa Public Health Foundation, Nairobi
Bad roads in rural Zimbabwe mean the community have to rely on donkey carts and jalopy cars as bus operators are not prepared to travel there. Credit: Jeffrey Moyo/IPS
by Jeffrey Moyo (mwenezi, zimbabwe)
Inter Press Service
MWENEZI, Zimbabwe, Mar 15 (IPS) – From the Masvingo-Beitbridge highway in Zimbabwe at a spot popularly known as Turn-P, the road passing through Neshuro Township has been degraded, disused, and derelict for over two decades, with buses avoiding the route. Now donkey-drawn carts that operate alongside jalopy vehicles have become the new alternative for remote travellers around Mwenezi villages.
The scotch carts have become even more common in areas around Maranda and Mazetese in Mwenezi as villagers switch to them for transport to hospitals and clinics.
Such has become a life for 64-year-old Dennis Masukume of the Mazetese area.
The diabetic patient is forced to use alternative means of transport.
“I board a scotch cart every time I want to travel to Neshuro hospital for my medication, which means I use the scotch cart up to somewhere in Gwamatenga where I then get some private cars that ply the route to Neshuro at nominal fares,” Masukume told IPS.
At Tsungirirai Secondary school and Vinga Primary school in the Mwenezi district, the rare availability of public transport means that even teachers have to cope with scotch carts each time they have to travel to Maranda, where they catch jalopies to the Masvingo-Beitbridge highway on paydays.
In fact, with road infrastructure badly damaged in most rural areas in Zimbabwe, villagers are resorting to olden ways of transport-using scotch carts and walking to reach places where they can access essential services like health care.
The unpaved rural roads have become impassable for buses.
Now, some villagers are capitalizing on the crisis, using their scotch carts to earn a living.
Mwenezi district, located in Masvingo Province, south of the country, has become famed for routes plied by scotch carts.
Entrepreneurs have turned to making easy money from scotch carts. Twenty-four-year-old Clive Nhongo, who resides closer to Manyuchi dam in Mwenezi, said the bad roads had meant good business for him.
“I’m charging a dollar per passenger every trip I make with my scotch cart taking people anywhere around my area, and I can tell you I make about 20 USD daily depending on the number of customers I get, considering that villagers rarely travel here,” Nhongo told IPS.
While many villagers fume at the damaged roads and lack of a proper modern transport system, many, like Nhongo, have something to smile about.
“I provide the alternative transport, and until roads are rehabilitated and buses return on our routes, I might remain in business, which is fine for me,” said Nhongo.
He (Nhongo) has made wooden seats and installed them on his scotch cart to accommodate passengers.
More and more villagers, cornered with transport woes amid derelict roads in villages, are now having to rely on donkey-drawn scotch carts owned by village entrepreneurs like Nhongo.
Public transport operators like 56-year-old Obed Mhishi, based in Masvingo, Zimbabwe’s oldest town, said there was no way he could endure damaging his omnibuses plying routes with defunct roads.
Donkey-drawn carts have taken over.
“It’s not only me shunning the routes the ones in Mwenezi and its villages, but we are many transport operators shunning the routes owing to deplorable roads, and yes, scotch cart operators are capitalizing on that to fill the vacuum. That’s business,” Mhishi told IPS.
Yet even as scotch carts operators cash in on the growing crisis in the Southern African country, local authorities have said donkey-drawn scotch carts have never been regularized to ferry people anywhere in Zimbabwe.
An official working at Mwenezi Rural District Council, who said he was not authorized to speak to the media, said, “scotch carts don’t pay road tax, nor do they have insurance for passengers.”
But for ordinary Zimbabwean villagers in Mwenezi, like 31-year-old Richmore Ndlovhu, with dilapidated roads that have been neglected for years, the scotch carts have become the only way—insurance or not.
Buses that used to reach areas like Mazetese now prefer not to go beyond the Masvingo-Beitbridge highway, where scotch carts and a few jalopy vehicles scramble for passengers alighting from buses. These are the passengers wanting to proceed with their journeys into villages.
Zimbabwe’s rural roads in districts like Mwenezi have remained unpaved for more than four decades after gaining independence from colonial rule.
Meanwhile, Zimbabwean President Emerson Mnangagwa has been on record affirming that his country would become a middle-income state by 2025, just about two years from now.
Yet for opposition political activists here, like Elvis Mugari of the Citizens Coalition for Change, Mnangagwa may be building castles in the air.
“With corruption in his government and the sustained hatred for the opposition, Mnangagwa won’t achieve a middle-income Zimbabwe. That is impossible,” Mugari told IPS.
Batai Chiwawa, a Zimbabwean development expert, blamed the regime here for taking the whole country backwards.
“Is it not taking the country to the stone age era when villagers now have to use scotch carts as ambulances? Is it not a return to the dark ages when people now have to walk long distances because there is no public transport in their villages? This is embarrassing, deeply embarrassing, when people start using scotch carts as public transport in this day and era,” Chiwawa asked when commenting to IPS.
BRIGHTON, UK, Mar 09 (IPS) – This year marks the halfway point— eight years in and eight years out— of the UN Sustainable Development Goals to end poverty and reduce inequalities.
Yet we are a long way off from these commitments, and multiple crises – now known as ‘polycrisis’ – such as conflict, disaster and extreme poverty are converging on low income and lower-middle income countries, necessitating systemic change in our poverty eradication efforts.
The scale of the challenge before us is undeniable. Poverty has long been concentrated in certain low- and lower middle-income countries that continue to experience conflict and a high number of conflict related fatalities, and high numbers of people affected by disasters from earthquakes, to floods, fires or drought.
These are just two causes of impoverishment and chronic poverty, which often combine with other crises and shocks including ill health.
This isn’t just a concern, however, at the country level. The challenge we are increasingly facing because of polycrisis in many parts of the world is that inequalities within countries are also worsening. The complex and often multi-layered nature of today’s crises means that policymakers need to develop longer term solutions, instead of firefighting crises as they emerge.
Our work at the Chronic Poverty Advisory Network (CPAN) in Afghanistan saw that the pandemic, layered with the transition in power, drought, and heightened economic crises, all combined to drive poverty and a dramatic increase in hunger.
Its consequences were especially worrying for certain groups, not least women and girls, and with intergenerational consequences.
In Nigeria, research points to a confluence of hardships over the years experienced by the poorest populations due to sequenced, interdependent crises. The poorest households pre-pandemic were more likely to experience hunger and sell agricultural and non-agricultural assets to cope during COVID-19 in 2020.
As time went on they were also more likely to pay more than the official price for petrol in 2022 during rampant economic crisis, and to expect drought and delayed rains to negatively affect them financially into 2023.
Yet despite interconnected crises, most governments and international agencies respond to each disaster individually as it arises. This could limit the effectiveness of poverty eradication interventions or create additional sources of risk and vulnerability amidst polycrisis.
For example, the singular focus of many countries responding to COVID-19 often diverted resources from other interventions including peacebuilding operations, thereby allowing new conflict risks to arise.
Working ‘in’ and ‘on’ polycrisis: centring equity and risk
To reach the goal of poverty eradication and reducing extreme inequities, it is critical to respond in a way is sensitive to working in places experiencing polycrisis. This requires at a minimum upholding principles of ‘do no harm’ and being sensitive to local conditions and contexts.
At the same time, we need to find ways of proactively working on polycrisis, by responding to multiple crises simultaneously rather than one at a time. In other words, building on learning from conflict contexts, we need to be working in and on polycrisis in the road to zero poverty.
Many countries worked ‘in’ polycrisis when responding to climate-related disasters during COVID-19. For example, the Bangladesh government adapted its Cyclone Preparedness Plan through various actions including modifying dissemination of messaging through public announcements and digital modalities, and combining early warning messaging with COVID-19 prevention and protection messaging.
Afghanistan disaggregates needs by sector, severity, location, and population groups in its humanitarian needs overview, which when considered holistically can help ensure responses that prioritise benefiting people in poverty.
There are equally important lessons from working ‘on’ polycrisis. The World Food Programme’s operational plan in response to COVID-19 was regularly updated to consider evolving layered crises and support pre-emptive action, scale-up direct food assistance, and reinforce safety nets.
There are also examples we can draw on for reducing poverty from around localised decision making, relying on the knowledge that local communities, women’s rights organisations, and local disaster risk management agencies have about populations in the areas in which they operate.
Flexibility in funding is important in this process to be able to respond to rapidly changing contexts and needs.
Working ‘in’ and ‘on’ polycrisis together necessitates matrix thinking, rebooting and recasting what we know of complexity of intersectionality. While we previously recognised intersecting inequalities primarily by identity markers, such as gender, caste, and socio-economic status, we need to increasingly be aware of how inequalities of people and place converge over time, and how we might centre equity in risk-informed responses.
This requires a fundamental shift from single-issue technocratic approaches to crisis management. For example, though social protection – direct financial assistance for people – was heralded as a key mitigation measure during COVID-19 and in response to recent food and energy price inflation, most cash transfer programmes averaged just four to five months during the pandemic.
Social protection could be adjusted to increasingly target the vulnerable as well as people in poverty, and within those categories the people who have arguably been most disadvantaged by these crises. Recovery programmes by governments and international agencies also need to go on for longer than they typically do to build people’s resilience in times of uncertainty.
Disaster-risk management agencies within government could also consistently integrate conflict considerations in their activities. There are examples of anticipatory action such as early warning systems that draw on local, customary knowledge that could be built on in this process.
Investments in coordination between disaster risk, social protection, and peacebuilding agencies, as well as multilateralism between governments, civil society, and international organisations more broadly are needed to anticipate and adapt to systemic risk.
But this risk-informed development will only get us so far, if equity is not centred alongside risk management. Just as crises are increasingly layered and interdependent, we need to similarly integrate our responses to break the link between polycrisis and poverty.
Opinion by Giulia Ribeiro Barao, Bosen Lily Liu (paris)
Inter Press Service
The following opinion piece is part of series to mark International Women’s Day, March 8.
PARIS, Mar 08 (IPS) – In September 2020, the Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action for women’s rights celebrated its 25th anniversary. It was, however, a bittersweet commemoration, mixing joy for the progress in gender equality achieved since 1995, and the stark realization about the multidimensional gaps awaiting tackling and the new divides brought by the social consequences of COVID-19.
In 2021, UNESCO projected that 11 million girls were at risk of not returning to school after the education interruptions caused by the pandemic. Even though the educational disruption accelerated the way into innovative learning practices, including distance and online education, it was not an equal reality for all social groups, since those already marginalized were also overrepresented in the offline population, including girls and women, and especially those living in poverty and rural communities (ECOSOC, 2021).
In 2020, worldwide, 57 percent of women used the Internet, compared with 62 per cent of men (ECOSOC, 2021). In the least developed countries (LDCs), landlocked developing countries (LLDCs), Africa, and the Arab States, the gender gap in internet use remains more significant.
For instance, in LDCs, only 19 per cent of women are using the internet, which is 12 percentage points lower than men. Similarly, in Africa, 24 per cent of women use the internet compared to 35 per cent of men, while in the Arab States, the Internet usage rate is 56 per cent, compared to 68 per cent of men.
Girls and women who are kept without access to Internet and digital literacy will not benefit from the technological revolution that is currently transforming all areas of life, most centrally the educational sector and the job markets.
Even though innovation and technology for girls and women’s education is undoubtedly a critical topic in the contemporary scenario, we should notice that innovation itself extends beyond the boundaries of the digital world.
To further explore the field of innovation in education, the UNESCO Young People on Transforming Education Project (YPTEP) focuses on innovative learning practices – technological or non-technological tools and techniques – initiated and led by learners themselves for meaningful and transformative engagement in their own educational journeys.
One highlight of the project is on understanding the gender-responsive practices from girls and women.
Girls and women worldwide have long been innovative in fighting gender barriers and creating self-initiative and community strategies to accessing learning even when excluded from Internet access and other forms of innovation.
A female leader who creates a finance course for mothers, while providing turns of collective care for their children, is innovating in education. A girl who creates a book club with her friends to read and debate publications on feminism is innovating in education.
Women in STEM, taking part in research and development groups, although still underrepresented, are innovating in education.
So, here we are – right at the crossroad where education, innovation and gender inequalities meet. Not paying attention to those issues will only aggravate previous gaps, hampering the advancement of all 17 Sustainable Development Goals.
To contribute to this debate and pathways for solutions, the UNESCO team of Young People on Transforming Education Project (YPTEP) at UNESCO IESALC hosted a Fireside Chat on “Women and girls, innovation, and higher education” on 6 March 2023 to reunite women and girls from different countries and regions and celebrate their success not only to overcome challenges, but also to become changemakers in the field.
During the chat, we had the opportunity to engage with ten female storytellers who shared their stories on innovative learning and expand our understanding of innovation, creativity, and transformation in education.
Stories approached, in a broader sense, innovative paths in getting access to higher education; innovative learning practices to get through education and achieve learning goals; innovative tools and techniques that have enhanced their experiences as learners both inside and outside the classroom; and studying and working initiatives to design new technology and broader forms of innovation for education.
Participation in the Fireside Chat is also open and expected from all those who wish to share their experiences on innovative learning and higher education. We have organized interactive activities and will have “open chatbox” and “open mic” for anyone who are willing to present yourselves typing and tell your stories live.
References
Global Education Monitoring Report Team & UNESCO. (2021). #HerEducationOurFuture: keeping girls in the picture during and after the COVID-19 crisis; the latest facts on gender equality in education . UNESCO.
Delegates at the Youth Empowerment: Education, Employment and Sexual and Reproductive Health and Rights forum held in Phnom Penh, Kingdom of Cambodia. Credit: APDA
by Cecilia Russell (johannesburg)
Inter Press Service
JOHANNESBURG, Mar 08 (IPS) – With more than 600 million youth aged between 18 and 24 in the Asia and Pacific region, putting their issues front and center is crucial. Speakers at a recent forum, Youth Empowerment: Education, Employment and Sexual and Reproductive Health and Rights, held in Phnom Penh, Kingdom of Cambodia, agreed that policy development and implementation should be youth-centered.
Professor Keizo Takemi, MP (Japan) and Chair of the Asian Forum of Parliamentarians on Population and Development (AFPPD), reminded parliamentarians of the work ahead when he noted in his opening address that while youth were “innovative thanks to global digitalization, half are unemployed or underemployed. Therefore parliamentarians have a vital role to play.”
The extent of the challenges emerged during the discussions. Raoul Danniel A Manuel, MP Philippines, said teenage pregnancy was higher in rural areas than urban, and there was also an education differential.
“The rate is 32 percent among teenagers without education, 14% among teenagers with primary education, and 5% among teenagers with a secondary education,” Manuel said, noting that the Philippines was the only country in Southeast Asia where the teenage pregnancy rate is increasing in girls aged 10 to 14.
“It is important to raise awareness among young people so that they know how to take care of themselves before they marry. We also need to continue to strengthen services, especially user-friendly services, by focusing on vulnerable groups and young women who do not go to school because this group is at a very high risk of pregnancy, and pregnancy can be risky.”
Lisa Chesters, MP (Australia), reminded conference delegates that “comprehensive sexual education has a positive impact on young people. It has been credited with delaying sexual debut can reduce unwanted pregnancies and STDs.”
Benefits included preventing intimate partner violence, developing healthy relationships, and preventing sexual abuse.
Australia learned after an online petition went viral in 2021 the extent to which students had been subjected to sexual harassment at schools. Following this, ministers for education throughout the country agreed on sexual education at school.
Chesters said it was crucial to include comprehensive, well-planned engagement of young people at the center of any advertising and social media campaigns.
The discussion also centered around employment. Felix Weidenkaff, the Youth Employment Expert for the ILO’s regional office for Asia and the Pacific, told the conference that while digitalization was a key strategy to increase youth employment, it wasn’t a one-off. Aspects lawmakers should consider would include TVET and skill development (including understanding the needs of those with disability), infrastructure, connectivity, and equipment to create an inclusive system.
Delegates at the Youth Empowerment: Education, Employment and Sexual and Reproductive Health and Rights forum held in Phnom Penh, Kingdom of Cambodia. Credit: APDA
Sophea Khun, Country Program Coordinator of UN Women, said changing gender norms required comprehensive and sustained strategies that engage multiple stakeholders at all levels: households, communities, institutions, and governments.
Girls and young women needed to be given the opportunity for training in STEM (science, technology, and mathematics) to close the digital divide.
“In addition, harmful social norms that contribute to controlling women and girls’ access to communications and technology also need to be tackled,” Khun said.
Hun Many, MP (Cambodia) and Chair of the Commission, reiterated in his closing remarks that to create a more elaborate and innovative policy, “youth need to be able to be part of the decision-making process and the discussions.”
Ahead of the conference, IPS interviewed Cambodian MP Lork Kheng, chair of the commission on public health, social works, vocational training, and women’s affairs. Here are excerpts from the interview.
Lork Kheng, Cambodian MP and chair of the commission on public health, social works, vocational training, and women’s affairs.
IPS: A tremendous amount of work is to be done to improve SRHR for all and youth-friendly services. How can young MPs play an enhanced role in developing policy, ensuring services are adequately financed and delivered to the communities where required?
LK: With regards to the role of Parliament, we can oversee the implementation of policies related to education, the provision of safe counseling on sexual and reproductive health, family planning, abortion, HIV/AIDS prevention and care, and local monitoring of child marriages, which are challenges for our Asia-Pacific region. In addition, the National Assembly always provides opportunities for development partners to contribute ideas and proposals for consideration through close cooperation in organizing educational forums and disseminating discussions and exchanges at national and sub-national levels (in their constituencies). We can establish effective monitoring and evaluation mechanisms and coverage of the actual implementation of practitioners and service providers and the effectiveness of policies to ensure that they are providing the anticipated outcomes. Working with think tanks and civil society organizations to conduct research, assessment, and evaluation that informs policymaking and improves service delivery from all stakeholders’ perspectives.
Another important role is to communicate directly with the people and sub-national authorities in the constituencies where they are based. Young MPs and MPs often use the forum to meet and visit local administrations, etc., to mainstream the information and raise awareness of the importance of youth and family life planning, as well as to share good local and global political experiences and best practices that can be implemented within the existing framework of national and sub-national policies to stakeholders, especially local authorities who work directly with the youth.
In particular, in overseeing the financing, every year, MPs actively participate in the discussion of the draft budget law, in which the whole House closely monitors the progress and changes in the budget allocation according to each program. Furthermore, MPs also provide feedback to the executive branch during the initial consultation phase until the full house passes the draft budget. In this regard, the review of budget allocations for youth health care, such as increased attention to the prevention and control of non-communicable diseases, tobacco control, food safety and diet in general, and sexual issues in particular, has been addressed frequently and has been noted and considered by the relevant ministries as well as the Government.
The Ministry of Posts and Telecommunications has prioritized students who pass the upper secondary national examination with good grades to study digital skills with the support of a student loan that must be repaid when they get a job. This is to strengthen human resources with digital capabilities.
IPS: While Asia and the Pacific are home to more than 60% of the world’s youth aged between 15 and 24, the COVID-19 pandemic acted to disadvantage youth in poorer and rural communities, especially where schooling was interrupted, and children did not have access to the technologies for remote learning. How can youth MPs ensure that those children (who may even now be young adults) are given the opportunities to complete their education? Secondly, how should policy, infrastructure, and finance be directed at children still disadvantaged by a lack of technology?
LK: We all truly recognize that the COVID-19 pandemic is an extraordinary challenge that has plagued all socio-economic sectors, requiring the Government and authorities to respond with unusual means in these difficult circumstances. In developing countries like Cambodia, when schools were closed to prevent the spread of COVID-19 in its early stages, we did not have the right digital infrastructure for teaching and learning. Students in rural areas and those considered to be disadvantaged groups were the ones who faced barriers to accessing education at that stage. But if we look at the immediate solution of the Head of the Royal Government of Cambodia, we can measure the outcome of solving the challenges with this decision. The Government quickly rolled out vaccinations, especially prioritizing vaccinations for front-line medical workers and educators. That ensured that these two environments gained immunity as soon as possible so that students could return to class quickly with a high sense of security.
IPS: Youth are considered a vital resource for the country’s economic development, but they face high unemployment. What are young MPs working on to ensure that youth can get decent jobs and support young entrepreneurs? What are the policy directions needed to foster youth employment?
LK: Specifically in Cambodia, the unemployment rate for youth may be slightly lower than 14 percent. Nevertheless, youth are also facing other major challenges, such as skill mismatches with the job markets and vulnerabilities of international labor migration, which are the major concerns of the Parliament and the Government. As Cambodia is riding high on development in all areas, the labor market has expanded, especially in areas that benefit youth. In response to such demands, the Government has paid close attention to education and vocational training by prioritizing promoting science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) to encourage young people to acquire high-demand skills.
In this new academic year, the Government has encouraged youth to pursue vocational skills at the primary and secondary levels by giving monthly allowance to approximately 1.5 million students, in addition to their free tuition.
To support the promotion of young entrepreneurship, we have also established a number of mechanisms – both under state supervision and public-private partnerships – that have created entrepreneurship and incubation centers. In particular, during the COVID-19 pandemic, these mechanisms also played an important role in providing much-needed assistance to those businesses through loans and free training to the entrepreneurs so that they could utilize the technology for their businesses against the backdrop of a changing lifestyle in the new normal.
Note: Asian Forum of Parliamentarians on Population and Development (AFPPD), Asian Population and Development Association (APDA), and the Japan Trust Fund supported the hybrid conference.
Opinion by Mercy Erhi Makpor (guimarães, portugal)
Inter Press Service
Guimarães, Portugal, Mar 07 (IPS) – The following opinion piece is part of series to mark International Women’s Day, March 8. The accelerating pace of digitalization has ushered humanity into a whole different era of information and communication. Today, digitalization permeates every aspect of our lives, socio-economically and politically.
Pakistani women peacekeepers in the audience at the National University of Science and Technology in Islamabad, where Secretary-General António Guterres delivered an address on the topic of peacekeeping. Credit: UN Photo/Mark Garten
Opinion by Simone Galimberti (kathmandu, nepal)
Inter Press Service
The following opinion piece is part of series to mark International Women’s Day, March 8
KATHMANDU, Nepal, Mar 06 (IPS) – If you want to have a good reading on women and young girls’ activism, there is a high chance that you have missed an incredibly interesting report.
On the one hand, the special procedures under UN Human Rights focused on women should be re-organized and on the other hand, country level programs supporting women should become more unified. Meanwhile, a new global platform, building on the Generation Equality Forum, could bring these two complementary but vastly different realm of works, together to engage the global public and the leaders.
The blueprint offers a real and practical guidance on about how the direct involvement and engagement of women and young girls is essential if governments are serious about achieving gender equality and ends, once for all, any type of gender-based discriminations.
The Working Group is composed by five experts, mostly academician but also practitioners, on women’s rights and despite the low profile, it maintains a real busy annual schedule that makes its work incredibly relevant and valuable.
It does not only meet three times a year for planning and coordination and but also holds a dialogue at the Human Rights Council in June in addition to reporting to the General Assembly in October/November and also participates at the annual March meeting of the Commission on the Status of the Women.
On the top of all these tasks and consider that their commitment with the Working Group proceeds along their official and equally demanding full-time jobs, the members also conduct annual visits to member states to monitor and assess their work to protect women and girls against discrimination.
The problem is that its work does get neither visibility nor recognition.
One of the reasons is that the UN human rights architecture promoting and defending the rights of women is too complex and fragmented and requires a drastic overhaul.
There are too many mechanisms often with an almost overlapping mandates tasked to protect women’s rights, perhaps also a reflection on the inevitable rivalries at the UN and the consequent compromises that are always struck by the member states.
Her mandate is stronger and certainly more visible than those of the members of the Working Group even though she operates within UN Human Rights.
Though the former mechanism is focused on fighting discrimination and the latter is instead exclusively aimed at assessing cases of violence against women, you might wonder if it could be more effective and value for money to devise a more united approach, a more effective modality to monitor and defend the rights of women around the world.
Certainly, we cannot discount the fact that we are talking about special procedures mechanisms within the Human Rights Council, an intergovernmental body within the UN that is actually the only forum where the member states of the UN discuss, share and peer reviews their human rights.
The special procedures are important because they uniquely involve top experts in matters of human rights and their contributions provide even more legitimacy to the important work that the UN System is doing to uphold the rights of vulnerable persons around the world.
A possibility to strengthen their work could be to imagine a different “governance” that maximizes their opinions and reviews, even with the possibility to provide full time tenures and adequate resources to support their work and give it the visibility it deserves.
It is composed by twenty-three experts and one of its main tasks is to “assist States parties in the preparation of initial and subsequent periodic reports” and holding constructive dialogue with them and issue the so called “concluding observations” on what the member states present to show their commitment to CEDAW.
Officially started in 2017, the platform aims to “promote thematic and institutional cooperation between the UN and regional expert mechanisms on the elimination of discrimination and violence against women and girls with the view of accelerating domestication of international and regional standards, achieving gender equality and empowering women and girls”.
The reality is that this mechanism never got traction nor got the mandate to truly coordinate among UN and external, autonomous regional mechanisms outside of the purview of the UN system.
Mentioned earlier, the Commission on the Status of the Women is the oldest of all these mechanisms that, while proved to be indispensable over the last decades to mainstream women rights within the universal human rights agenda, is now outdated.
Till now we have been only focusing on mechanisms to uphold, monitor and protect the rights of women.
We have not yet discussed the “program” side of the equation, the work to prevent violence and discrimination against women and promote their empowerment being done by UN agencies and programs, including UN Women the agency that provides the secretariat of the Commission on the Status of Women.
In this respect, there is also, always within the UN System, the Inter-Agency Network on Women and Gender Equality or IANWGE, bringing together all the main women focal points of all UN agencies and programs.
Under responsibility of UN Women, the Network appears weak and just a formality though we should assume that at country level, all the work related to women’s empowerment is coordinated under the United Nations Sustainable Development Cooperation Framework (formerly named United Nations Development Assistance Framework).
This is a process that itself could require a further upgrade to truly maximize cooperation and avoidance of overlaps between and among agencies and programs.
It is evident that in both domains, on the one hand, the human rights accountability mechanisms and on the other hand, the actions and programs on the ground to change the status quo, there is need of a much stronger synergy and coordination, something that might be objected by several members of the UN that are unlikely to support anything akin to strengthen mechanisms upholding human rights.
Even the Commission on the Status of Women itself, whose upcoming session will be held between the 6 and17 March, should be re-thought.
With a multiyear thematic plan, the Commission, is a toothless and unnoticed advocacy and knowledge creation institution that each year comes up with a topic up for analysis and discussion.
This year, for example, the focus will be on “Innovation and technological change, and education in the digital age for achieving gender equality and the empowerment of all women and girls” while last year’s theme was centered around climate change, environment and disaster prevention.
There are no doubts that it is important to have a global convening forum that brings together the top experts on issues that are so relevant to achieve SDG 5. Yet it is not hard to imagine how a stronger, more coordinated women centered architecture in the UN could achieve and produce more while spending less.
Let’s remind ourselves that the Agenda 2030 and the SDGs brought some institutional innovations in the way the UN operates, primarily the High-Level Political Forum on Sustainable Development, that is the major SDGs focused platform promoted by the UN.
Besides its usual gathering in July, this year the Forum will also host another SDG Summit in September, the biggest format to discuss about and review the SDGs at the highest levels of political leadership worldwide.
Yet, while we are referring to a strong advocacy and review mechanism with a considerable amount of convening power, the High-Level Political Forum is simply what it is, a review mechanism of countries’ performances towards accomplishing the SDGs and important vehicle for debating them.
A reform of a stronger UN System that is better positioned to truly achieve SDG 5, should acknowledge an existing deep gulf between promotion and defense of human rights focusing on women (as well other human rights issues) and, on the other end, actions on ground at legislative, judiciary and economic and social levels to change the status quo.
For example, UN Human Rights has no formal role in hosting the High-Level Political Forum that is instead organized by ECOSOC and has a very limited presence at countries level.
A better chance at ensuring that the rights of women are defended while their living conditions improve, could be based on two complementary internal reforms within the UN System: an improvement on how Human Rights operates and a drastic rethinking of how the women focused service, advocacy and delivery-oriented agencies of the UN work.
On the former, the UN Human Rights could undertake, with the aim of giving them more voice and authority, a major reform of its “accountability” mechanisms that rely on the professionalism, integrity and expertise of world class activists, advocates and legal scholars.
The role of the Commission on the Status of the Women should also be reviewed. As per now, its outreach and voice are limited within the development sector and it has become almost irrelevant and unknown to the global public opinion.
On the latter, in terms of programs and initiatives supporting women and their rights around the world, only a true One United Nations approach at country level could do the job with ultimately a much better coordination and one unified “delivery” channel.
Both processes of change and their respective spheres of work, accountability and program, could then be promoted through a united “Global Women” platform that could end up with the same visibility that COP process gained for climate action.
A recently created multi partnership forum could, potentially, become such main vehicle to achieve SDG 5. I am talking of Generation Equality Forum, a joint initiative of Mexico and France that has been facilitated by UN Women.
It holds a great potential to facilitate new collaborations that so far has been convened twice in 2021, first in Mexico City and then in Paris, paving the way for an ambitious global program of action, the Global Acceleration Plan.
The interesting part of it is that the Forum is truly action oriented with its members committing to take action through six sub areas groups, branded as Generation Equality Action Coalitions that include the entire spectrum of areas that would ensure achieving SDG 5.
From gender violence to economic justice, to bodily autonomy and sexual reproductive rights, to climate justice to technology and innovation, to leadership, the coalitions, made up by hundreds of civil society organizations, global foundations and private corporations, can really facilitate partnerships with private sector and civil society, a capacity that the UN System has never mastered.
Can this new and bold attempt to catalyze efforts and investments for the rights of women and girls around the world become the epicenter of a new women focused development architecture?
Can a hybrid vehicle to rally global investments and actions for women help galvanize global attention on their rights and at same time do the job of meeting the targets of SDG 5?
Finally, would a new women focused “governance” of development assistance also force the UN System to change for good its working modalities?
Even if the accountability mechanisms under UN Human Rights would remain formally separated by this process of renewal for women ‘rights, nevertheless the banner of the Generation Equality Forum transformed into a “Global Women” platform could be used to highlight and “empower” their work.
The fact that this year there will be another gathering of the Generation Equality Forum could offer additional new momentum to the initiative though last year only a very low key event celebrated its 1st year anniversary.
Yet it was still an important gathering because it was where the Forum’s first accountability report was unveiled.
In few days from now the Forum will actively participate in the upcoming session of Commission on the Status of Women but with some insights, perhaps, the opposite process should occur.
The Commission and all other women focused mechanisms and programs, at minimum, could become part of a much larger and more institutionalized institution that should also be fully aligned to and possibly become the central pillar for SDG 5 of The High-Level Political Forum on Sustainable Development.
Rather they should be truly embraced head-on. Meanwhile another great publication on women and young girls’ activism will be read by too few people.
Simone Galimberti is the Co-Founder of ENGAGE and co-initiator of the Good Leadership, Good for You & Good for the Society, both active in Nepal. He writes on volunteerism, social inclusion, youth development and regional integration as an engine to improve people’s lives
Opinion by Magdalena Sepulveda (geneva, switzerland)
Inter Press Service
GENEVA, Switzerland, Mar 06 (IPS) – The following opinion piece is part of series to mark International Women’s Day, March 8. She will be called Aya. This is the name that nurses gave to the infant baby pulled from the rubble of a five-story building in Jinderis, northern Syria. A miracle. Beside her, the rescuers found her mother, dead.
She had given birth within hours of the 7.8-magnitude earthquake that struck Turkey and Syria on the night of February 6, 2023. Like her, more than 50,000 people died in the earthquake. As tragic as it is hopeful, this story has moved the international media.
It also reminds us that over 350,000 pregnant women who survived the earthquake now urgently need access to health care, according to the United Nations. And this is only one aspect of women’s vulnerability to natural disasters.
Floods, droughts, earthquakes, and other extreme events are not gender-neutral, especially in developing countries. Evidence shows that women and girls die in greater numbers and have different and uneven levels of resilience and capacity to recover.
Of the 230,000 people killed in the 2004 Indian Ocean Tsunami, for example, 70% were women. Because of gender barriers, they often have fewer survival skills: boys are taught to swim or read first. This makes it difficult for them to access early warnings or identify safe shelters.
In addition, it is more difficult for women to escape from danger, since they are most often responsible for children, the elderly, and the sick. Heightened tensions and fear, as well as the loss of income provoked by disasters, drive increased domestic violence against women and girls.
They are also the first victims of sexual violence and exploitation when entire populations are displaced – this was one of the first concerns in Pakistan when more than 8 million people had to leave their homes because of the terrible floods in June-August 2022.
Natural catastrophes negatively impact everyone economically, but women and girls are disproportionately affected. World Bank data show that female farmers suffer much more than male ones in rural areas.
Assigned to domestic tasks, they are more dependent than men on access to natural resources and are, therefore, the first to suffer when these become scarce. In every region, food insecurity is higher among women than men.
In 2020, it was estimated that nearly 60% of the people who go hungry are women and girls, and the gender gap has only increased since then. Their lack of access to bank accounts also means that women’s assets are less protected than men’s.
And, of course, recovery from any crisis builds on societal expectations related to gender roles. Consequently, women bear the brunt of the increased domestic burden after a disaster at the cost of missing out on other income-generating activities.
We know that women spend, on average, 3.2 times more time than men on unpaid care work, and the COVID-19 pandemic – another human-induced natural catastrophe – made evident how unequally unpaid care and domestic work is shared, and how undervalued and underrecognized it is.
This is a major constraint on women’s access to education, an obstacle to their entry into and advancement in the paid labor market, and to their political participation, with serious consequences in terms of social protection, income, and pensions.
Gender inequality exacerbates the impact of natural disasters, and the consequences of natural disasters exacerbate gender inequality. An unacceptable vicious cycle. With the world already facing a growing number of climate-related tragedies, governments must take immediate and long-term action to invest in universal access to health care, water and sanitation, education, social protection, and infrastructure for gender equality and the full enjoyment of women’s human rights.
Even in times of crisis, when state coffers are nearly empty, there are equitable solutions to raise revenues to fund the investments needed to strengthen women’s resilience: to make those who profit from the crises ravaging the planet, including from those natural disasters, pay, as recommended by the Independent Commission for the Reform of International Corporate Taxation (ICRICT), of which I am a member alongside, among others, Joseph Stiglitz, Jayati Ghosh, and Thomas Piketty. Instead of implementing austerity programs that devastate the most disadvantaged, states can increase their fiscal space by taxing companies and the super-rich more.
It starts with taxing the super profits made by multinationals, and several countries in Europe and Latin America have already begun to do so. This is particularly true for the pharmaceutical giants that have made a fortune selling vaccines against Covid-19, which they were able to develop due to public subsidies. This is also the case for multinationals in the energy or food sector.
Oxfam estimates that their profits increased by more than two and a half times (256%) in 2022 compared with the 2018–2021 average. For the same reasons, it is urgent to tax the richest, who get away with paying hardly any taxes these days.
One cannot accept that, as Oxfam reminds us, a man like Elon Musk, one of the wealthiest men in history, is taxed at 3.3%, while Aber Christine, a market trader in Uganda who sells rice, is taxed at 40%.
Progressive taxation – making the richest people and multinationals pay their fair share – is one of the most powerful tools for reducing inequality of all kinds. As the world celebrates International Women’s Day, let’s keep in mind that it is impossible to build more resilient societies without fighting for gender equality.
Continuing to ignore it is a political choice, and an even more perilous threat to development than natural disasters themselves.
Magdalena Sepúlveda is the Executive Director of the Global Initiative for Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, and a member of the Independent Commission for the Reform of International Corporate Taxation (ICRICT). From 2008-2014 she was the UN Special Rapporteur on Extreme Poverty and Human Rights @Magda_Sepul
In July 2021, widespread civil unrest spread across KwaZulu Natal and other South African provinces. While it followed the incarceration of former President Jacob Zuma, analysts also attributed it to widespread unemployment and inequality. Credit: Lyse Comins/IPS
by Lyse Comins (durban)
Inter Press Service
DURBAN, Mar 01 (IPS) – South Africa’s almost record level food price inflation, load shedding, rising energy costs, and further fuel and interest rate hike forecast have eroded workers’ disposable incomes and further disadvantaging the poor – leaving analysts predicting that the country was at heightened risk, including civil unrest.
Head of Policy Analysis at the Centre for Risk Analysis, Chris Hattingh, cautioned that the lower fuel price, which the latest Statistics SA data showed last week, had largely contributed to driving annual consumer inflation down from 7,2 percent in December 2022 to 6,9 percent in January, could prove to be only a temporary reprieve. The fuel price index declined by 10.5 percent between December 2022 and January, the data showed.
United Trade Union of SA (UASA) spokesperson Abigail Moyo said the state’s failure to supply food producers and retailers with sufficient water and electricity to run businesses efficiently had fuelled inflation that eroded workers’ disposable income.
“Economically driven financial stress through no fault of their own has been a factor in workers’ lives for years. With items such as maize meal going up 36,5 percent since January last year, onions up 48.7 percent, samp up 29.6 percent, and instant coffee up 26.4 percent, it is clear that difficult times are not nearly over for households,” she said.
Hattingh added: “This inflation relief afforded by the lower fuel price could prove to be temporary. The reopening of the Chinese economy will likely drive international oil prices higher, impacting down the line in the form of higher fuel prices. South Africa is also more exposed to imported inflation. Should the costs and prices of manufactured and consumer goods and inputs increase, this will then drive inflation higher locally.”
“Of great concern regarding pressure on consumers is that the food and non-alcoholic beverages inflation rate was recorded at 13.4 percent (annually) in January. The previous time this reading was so high was April 2009, at 13.6 percent,” he said.
Additionally, the category of bread and cereals recorded the biggest increase of any product group at 21.8 percent, while meat inflation rose from 9.7 percent in December 2022 to 11.2 percent in January.
“A fundamental weakness in the economy – unreliable electricity supply – could likely push prices and inflation higher throughout the year. This will result in more pressure on consumers and businesses and add to the potential for civil unrest,” he said.
He said load shedding was now a priced-in “feature of South African life,” as shown by the Rand weakening to R19 against the US Dollar.
Annual inflation, at 6.9 percent, was also outside the South African Reserve Bank’s (SARB) target range of 3 – 6 percent.
“With the latest data for January now in, the SARB could continue its rate hiking cycle with another 25 basis points increase at the next meeting of the Monetary Policy Committee,” Hattingh said.
Independent crime and policing expert and a former senior researcher at the Institute for Security Studies, Dr Johan Burger, warned that signs of potential unrest due to the rising cost of living and disillusionment were visible across the country.
He said most households in the middle and higher income brackets had been forced to cut back on spending due to higher interest rates and the rising prices of basic foods.
“Those of us with a relatively stable income are already finding it increasingly difficult and have to think twice before we buy something, so one can only imagine the pressure people in lower income groups must be feeling,” he said.
“For many, this has been the situation for many years, and it has become worse. Unemployment is at 32,9 percent, and the unofficial unemployment rate is even higher. High levels of unemployment lead to high levels of poverty, creating all sorts of social problems,” he said.
Burger said during the looting in July 2021, much of what was stolen was foodstuffs and goods that could be sold for cash.
“In some cases, people who went out to shop for food were attacked and robbed of their food. Other instances that we see now are when a truck breaks down on the road near a community, and all of a sudden, a flood of people come in and strip it of whatever it’s carrying – whether food or something they can exchange for food,” he said.
Burger said these incidents showed a “general instability” against the backdrop of a weakened criminal justice system that cannot deal effectively with criminals.
“The potential for large-scale disruptions and looting and for large groups of people to come together and engage in popular uprisings could happen. When large groups of people are exposed to extreme levels of property over a long period of time, they build resentment and feel neglected by the state. They feel their needs are not acknowledged, and with this resentment comes a disregard for the state, its laws, and the police, and they feel they have the right to rise up and take what they need,” Burger said.
“And if they rise up in large enough numbers, it will be very difficult for the state to suppress this kind of uprising. The potential for this to happen is very real – it’s almost visible; it’s just beneath the surface,” he said.
Burger said all that was needed to spark unrest was a potential trigger, as had occurred in KwaZulu-Natal with a pro (former president Jacob Zuma campaign ahead of the July 2021 riots.
“The danger is it could spread very quickly because those levels of poverty and deprivation exist in almost all our communities across the nation. In 2008 the Xenophobic riots spread in a question of days, and we saw 69 people killed and many more injured and displaced,” he said.
He warned that localized protests about service delivery had been occurring for years, and if left unattended, these could also get to a point where “resistance will explode.”
“It is growing dissatisfaction with their situation, and many of poor communities see themselves as the neglected part of South Africa. They have not shared in anything promised when democracy came in terms of employment and service, and they go hungry once this happens; there is a division between a part of our population and the institutions that govern us, which is why there is real potential for large scale insurrection,” Burger said.
Head of the Justice and Violence Prevention Programme at the Institute for Security Studies, Gareth Newham, said rising food security and hunger, with around 60 percent of the population now living in poverty and a large proportion of households facing hunger weekly, created a high level of despair and frustration.
“This challenge has been around some time, and increasing food prices could make that worse,” he said.
However, he said the current causes of most public violence were labor-related disputes and service delivery failures.
“We historically don’t have an issue where food insecurity has been a major driver of public violence, but it doesn’t mean it won’t be. There could arguably be a level of hunger that does lead to it,” he said.
Opinion by Armida Salsiah Alisjahbana (bangkok, thailand)
Inter Press Service
BANGKOK, Thailand, Mar 01 (IPS) – The writer is Under-Secretary-General of the UN and Executive Secretary of the Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific (ESCAP)
The following opinion piece is part of series to mark International Women’s Day, March 8. New technologies and innovations are reshaping our world and its future, often at a dizzying pace. Yet women and girls continue to be left behind in this burgeoning digital universe. How, then, can we harness these developments to create a better future for all of us?
This year’s International Women’s Day theme, “DigitALL: Innovation and technology for gender equality,” seeks to answer exactly that question.
We know that women and girls are less likely than men and boys to use the internet or own a smartphone. In fact, only 54 per cent of women in Asia and the Pacific have digital access, cut off from opportunities to move any digital needles forward.
The root causes are many and varied: deep-rooted discriminatory social norms, increased gender-based violence (including online violence), and the unequal distribution of unpaid care and domestic work. Addressing these impediments to women realizing their full potential requires our joint and immediate attention and response.
One child, one teacher, one pen
When and where women and girls are discouraged from studying and working in science, technology, engineering or math (STEM) fields, we let them down. And we have left a whole generation of women and girls behind. We need the talents and voices of women and girls brought to the boardrooms and coding rooms.
Today many innovations in AI, medicine, entertainment, transportation, work and other fields treat men as the standard and ignore women’s physical and social differences – to the detriment of half of the world’s population.
Getting more women into careers in technology starts with breaking down the gender stereotypes that prevent girls from studying STEM subjects. Comprehensive changes to the way STEM subjects are taught and targeted programs to support girls’ learning are needed.
In Viet Nam, the Ministry of Education and Training has updated the country’s National Early Childhood Education curriculum on “de-stereotyping” women and girls and has included gender-sensitive budgeting into the Education Sector Plan. Through changes such as these, governments can foster girls’ enthusiasm for technology, expanding the future digital workforce.
Harnessing technology to support women entrepreneurs
Women entrepreneurs play a key role in developing economies. Supporting them to start and grow businesses through technology will lead to more sustainable and inclusive economic growth. Women have historically struggled to access capital because they are less aware of funding options.
They are less likely to own land or have large savings to offer as collateral and have not been included in traditional financial networks. Technological innovations provide an opportunity to connect women entrepreneurs across the region with new financing models that cater to their particular needs.
The United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific (ESCAP) Catalyzing Women’s Entrepreneurship project has unlocked almost USD 65 million in capital to support women entrepreneurs in several countries.
Through identifying and backing a number of experimental technology-driven business models, the project has supported women-led micro, small and medium enterprises through a range of technology solutions such as payment platforms, online marketplaces, bookkeeping and inventory management.
Enabling women to become drivers of inclusive innovation
If we pair the untapped potential of women and girls to contribute to our common future together with the potential of the innovations of digitalization, science and technologies, we may well have cracked the code to rectifying many of the inequalities and injustices created by generations past.
Women have the know-how to harness technology and innovation. Given equal opportunities, they will flourish and contribute to creative solutions to tackle the world’s multi-faceted challenges.
Women leaders in Asia and the Pacific are already using technology to address inequalities and gender-based violence. Founded by Virginia Tan, Rhea See, and Leanne Robers, She Loves Tech, headquartered in Singapore, runs the world’s largest start-up competition for women and technology and aims to unlock over USD 1 billion in capital by 2030 for women-led businesses.
Safecity is a crowd-mapping platform for people to share experiences of sexual harassment in public spaces and allows communities to identify problems and work towards solutions. The platform was launched by three women, including current leader Elsa Marie D’Silva, in response to incidents of gender-based violence in the region.
“We can all do our part to unleash our world’s enormous untapped talent – starting with filling classrooms, laboratories, and boardrooms with women scientists,” said United Nations Secretary General Antonio Guterres recently. Indeed, we need women in leadership roles in all science and technology spaces to accelerate inclusive innovation.
Let’s work together towards our dream of achieving gender equality and empowering all women and girls. What better way to do so than to use innovations and new technologies to overcome inequalities in the digital age?
A girl reads a story book with lessons on life skills at an ELA club in Uganda. Credit: Uganda/BRAC
by Naureen Hossain (united nations)
Inter Press Service
UNITED NATIONS, Feb 22 (IPS) – BRAC’s Empowerment and Livelihood Program (ELA) has benefitted tens of thousands of girls, and its recently released report shows an organization willing to adapt to the circumstances to continue to ensure adolescent girls and young women receive meaningful sexual and reproductive health rights support.
The report titled Adolescent Empowerment at a scale: Successes and challenges of an evidence-based approach to young women’s programming in Africa was launched on February 15, 2023, at a BRAC and the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) jointly hosted event. The report was written with the support of the Spotlight Initiative, an UN-led, multi-partner initiative that aims to respond to and eliminate violence against women and girls, with a particular focus on family and intimate partner violence, sexual and gender-based violence, and harmful practices.
The history of BRAC’s Empowerment and Livelihood Program (ELA), which was designed to provide sexual and reproductive health education and livelihood training to adolescent girls and young women, is covered in the report. The program was launched in Uganda in 2006 and has since been implemented in Sierra Leone, South Sudan, and Liberia. During the program’s peak from 2013 to 2015, BRAC hosted over 1800 clubs with over 80,000 members.
“The reason that we partnered with BRAC, have partnered with them in the field… is because of the incredible work that they do in this very efficient, kind of way,” said moderator Satvika Chalasani, a Technical Specialist for UNFPA who oversees programs for adolescent girls and ending child marriage.
BRAC’s report Adolescent Empowerment at a scale: Successes and challenges of an evidence-based approach to young women’s programming in Africa talks about its successes and also the need to change programs to ensure their success in a changing society. Credit: BRAC
Chalasani observed that BRAC had gotten to tens of thousands of women on the African continent through their program, Empowerment, and Livelihood for Adolescents, and it was important to learn from their experiences of 15 years in the field.
Willibald Zeck, UNFPA’s Chief of Sexual and Reproductive Health and Rights, also noted BRAC’s record with youth empowerment programs in his opening remarks while adding that demographic changes in certain regions have influenced how such programs must be designed and implemented. It is estimated that over 60% of Africa’s population is under 25.
“As you know, in UNFPA, we really work across the continuum of sexual reproductive health and rights… And we see in certain regions around the globe the new demographics that are showing that there will be more adolescents in the population, but especially on the African continent. Which is a great opportunity in so many ways, but it also brings more challenges.”
Sarah Tofte, a research and policy consultant, and the report’s primary author, presented her findings, breaking down the program’s initial model and implementation and its eventual reset and adaptations.
The report includes findings from academic evaluations conducted by experts, randomized control trials (RCTs) conducted in the regions where ELA programs were hosted, and nearly 100 field interviews with participants and ELA staff.
The findings reveal an overall positive reception and impact on participants and their communities.
Tofte, the co-founder of Understory Consulting, a research and policy consulting firm, noted that the interviewees reported a greater, newfound sense of self through the ELA program, which they connected to making well-informed decisions and contributing productively to the community.
“So based on these positive academic results, and then what I was hearing from field interviews and what participants have been saying over many years, ELA really became a model for other adolescent and youth empowerment programming around the globe, including at the World Bank and at USAID.”
As the report explains, implementation challenges would surface as the program continued. Tofte, the co-founder, noted that while the program’s initial results had been positive, it had slowly ceased to achieve its intended impact.
“By 2017, anecdotal reports had emerged within BRAC about lagging performance of ELA clubs in several countries, including drops in attendance and gaps in the delivery of programming,” she said.
The decline in the program quality and the resulting challenge of sustaining the program over long periods of time also made it difficult to secure funding that would have gone toward addressing the decline. The program had become repetitive for some participants and staff, and issues of deeper community engagement had presented a hurdle for the program’s success.
In 2020, ELA would undergo a “reset” significantly through making fundamental and necessary changes to the curriculum. This would not only update the discussions on reproductive health and livelihood training but would make it more relevant to the economic and social circumstances of the girls they were intended for – while placing more emphasis on providing vocational and livelihood training and financial literacy. Other changes to the curriculum included adjusting the weekly ELA club meetings to optimize engagement and a new graduation model for students to leave the program after one year of completion. The resets were applied at a reduced scale to approximately 140 clubs in the countries where ELA programs were already present.
“Early feedback from this curriculum revamp from the participants suggest that the new curriculum is well received by participants and is driving a positive outcome in attendance and program impact,” Tofte said.
The ELA program adjustments are critical to modernizing the curriculum. What should be of note were the considerations taken to improve community engagement.
“Another big focus of the reset was to deepen community engagement. Prior, a lack of formalized mechanisms for community engagement resulted in some pushback at times from parents of community members who may not have fully bought into the ELA model,” Tofte said. She added that in some cases, the pushback was targeted at the sexual and reproductive health components when the content went against community norms around matters such as child marriage and sexual health.
In response, BRAC, through ELA, has taken measures to establish formal channels with community stakeholders and parents of the participants. By directly engaging with the community’s village elders, religious leaders, and other respected community members, ELA staff members can obtain their support before establishing a program. Formal community leadership committees are also formed, working with ELA staff to ensure smooth operations.
Rudo Kayambo, Regional Director of Africa for BRAC International, pointed out how the findings through field research and the trials were able to be synthesized and focused enough that they could be incorporated into the new program structure, which included paying attention to community members and groups that BRAC did not commonly work with in the past.
“One of the DNAs of BRAC is being able to learn and adapt it quickly,” she said. “…We have now managed to integrate all the lessons into a bigger multicultural program, and some of the key lessons were that they need to support the frontline workers.”
When asked to elaborate, Kayambo added that BRAC would provide technical training and the infrastructure to help monitor and use digital technology. “ are the heart of delivering the value of the ELA program and all its components.”
Another significant change to the rollout of the new ELA program was the introduction of sexual and reproductive health programs targeted at adolescent boys. Boys were included in the program partly to fill a gap in youth-empowerment programs that had thus far been only directed at adolescent girls and women. Through a series of RCTs conducted in 50 rural communities, trial programs similar to ELA were conducted with boys and young men, targeting them specifically.
“ the need to also incorporate adolescent boys and young men, because that formalizes our commitment to getting community buy-in,” said Kayambo.
Manisha Shah, a professor of public policy at UCLA who worked with BRAC to conduct the randomized trials, elaborated that the rationale was to include boys since they were already involved in the decisions and issues that girls and women had to contend with when it came to their health.
“Unless we get these boys on board with the agenda, it’s going to be really hard to think about how we improve the outcomes related to female sexual reproductive health,” she said.
A follow-up survey conducted in those communities two years after the trial programs ended revealed a decrease in intimate partner violence between 20 percent and 60 percent, with a “significant change in these boys’ attitude around violence” and an overall more positive reception and understanding of sexual and reproductive health.
“This just proves that we also need to be targeting the other side of the coin, which is the boys and the young men,” Shah said.
The event also showcased how other organizations partnered with BRAC through the ELA program, such as other NGOs like the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. The Foundation’s deputy director for women’s empowerment Diva Dhar remarked that it was critical to recognize that adolescents deal with “really important transitions on school to work, to marriage, to financial, economic independence, to employment.”
“ are a very important age group… because that attitudes and norms crystallize at this age and can have long-term implications, including for future generations,” Dhar said.
When looking at women’s economic empowerment, Dhar stated that further causal evidence would be needed to explore the intersections between economic independence and family planning and health outcomes.
For the Gates Foundation, this has involved investing in programs that build up skills and training for girls and women, including non-traditional opportunities that will build empowerment.
The ELA program in Africa is a testament to BRAC’s success as an NGO, given its ability to inspire similarly multifaceted youth-empowerment programs and its model to evolve and improve their work. However, the report makes it clear that this is achievable through the continued support from partners and donors and from fostering community engagement. Only then can the communities’ women and girls be empowered through the knowledge and skills they obtain through the program.
“One of the key findings we are taking from this is that the role of mentors and community assistance are so important,” Kayambo said. “We are creating room for them to engage from an empowered perspective, and building their own agency, to give room for them to engage and build themselves up before they can empower others in the community.”
Opinion by Ian Richards, Amy Shelver (geneva, switzerland)
Inter Press Service
GENEVA, Switzerland, Feb 07 (IPS) – New UNCTAD software does to digital government what IKEA did to furniture, allowing Bhutan’s government employees to create their own user-friendly services for citizens online.
Tedious government procedures aren’t just a pain for users, they’re a bore for the civil servants who administer them. Sitting behind a counter and stamping forms isn’t exactly a dream job.
This is where technology can help. In 2021, amid the COVID-19 pandemic, the Bhutanese government launched the G2B digital government portal. It’s a ground-breaking piece of software that earned the country recognition as the fastest place in the world to start a new business.
Entrepreneurs simply fill out a form on their mobile phones, and receive all registration documents at no cost, in less than a minute. In 2022, 5,500 Bhutanese, almost 1% of the population, used the service to register a business – 52% of them were women. It’s also a turning point for Bhutan’s public administration and for the world of digital government in general.
The fastest business registration service on Earth wasn’t designed by consultants in India or California but by the very civil servants who had previously administered the time-consuming, paper-only process that required citizens to go from one government office queue to another.
How did this happen?
Keep it simple
It’s all down to the low-code simplicity of the UNCTAD digital government platform, which after some basic training, Bhutan’s civil servants were able to customize themselves to create online services. The coverage of these services is now vast and includes permits to run bus services, authorizations to fly drones and leases for industrial parks.
Over the next two years, the government plans to include all permits, authorizations and procedures related to the country’s economy in the platform. With time it could stretch across all government departments.
“The goal of our technology is to ease friction,” says Frank Grozel, who heads UNCTAD’s digital government platform programme. “Everyone wins from having effective, uncomplicated technology at their fingertips. But this is especially important for civil servants, because it allows them to focus on why they do their job and not necessarily how they do it.”
Better service delivery
Each service is built from the bottom up. Government teams, including civil servants working on the procedure, developers and trainers came together to simplify existing steps, creating shortcuts that help accelerate service delivery.
Employees are guided to understand the process from the user’s point of view, generating empathy and understanding of where the bottlenecks and frustrations can be.
“Whole teams have started to see how the system could be changed, and why elements of the original process could have felt so painful to the end user,” said Bita Mortazavi, UNCTAD’s project manager for the Bhutan initiative.
The impact on staff has been transformative. “We can now focus on service development and select simple services, with large impact, to change entire systems,” said Sonam Lhamo, project lead at Bhutan’s Ministry of Economic Affairs.
Tshering Dorji, a developer, said it changed his perspective in software development. “My imagination improved a lot. I learned how to simplify without coding,” he said.
Another developer, Pema Gyalpo, was pleasantly surprised.
“We can further simplify even the simple things,” he said. “The experience of building this easier system was not about work, but how we’re going to work . I’ll be privileged to send ideas which will serve other countries.”
Innovate first, regulate later
Most Bhutanese businesses are small. About 95% of them are cottage enterprises. This reality drove the country’s government to seek ways to help the mountain nation’s micro-enterprises succeed in the quickest, simplest way.
“Our approach is to innovate first, regulate later, so as to reduce entry barriers for new businesses, embrace innovation and allow creativity to flourish,” said Bhutan’s minister of economic affairs, Tengye Lyonpo.
This ethos has delivered results for the country whose unconventional approaches are working for it and its citizens in novel ways.
While Bhutan has been pioneering the flatpack approach to digital government, making services modular and easier to create, thanks to funding from the Netherlands, other countries are set to follow. Colombia, Estonia, Jordan, Lebanon, Libya, Sudan, Togo and Tunisia will join the club this year.
Countries already benefiting from the platform include Argentina, Benin, Burundi, Cameroon, Cuba, El Salvador, Guatemala, Iraq, Lesotho and Mali.
Amy Shelver is an expert on digitalization and the creative economy and Ian Richards is an economist at UNCTAD specializing in digital business environments.
With China’s population at 1.4126 billion, the reported decrease of 850,000 amounts to 0.06 percent. Credit: Shutterstock.
Opinion by Joseph Chamie (portland, usa)
Inter Press Service
PORTLAND, USA, Feb 01 (IPS) – China’s announcement on 17 January 2023 that its population had declined for the first time in 60 years has fostered population decline hysteria and promoted more Ponzi demography in many parts of the world.
Pro-population growth advocates, including many policy makers, traditional economists, business leaders, conservative writers and media commentators, are advancing the hysteria of demographic gloom and doom following the Chinese government’s announcement of a decline in the world’s largest population.
China’s population decline was reported to be 850,000, which is the difference between 9.56 million births in 2022 against 10.41 million deaths. With China’s population at 1.4126 billion, the reported decrease of 850,000 amounts to 0.06 percent.
The population decline hysteria has in turn facilitated the promotion of Ponzi demography, which calls for sustained robust rates of population growth. Ponzi demography is basically a pyramid scheme that generates more money, power and influence for some by adding on more and more people through natural increase and in some cases immigration.
Its underlying strategy is relatively straightforward: privatize benefits and profits and socialize burdens and costs incurred from increased population growth. Ponzi demography, however, is clearly unsustainable. Populations cannot continue to grow indefinitely without having serious social, economic, environmental and climatic consequences.
The unsustainability of Ponzi demography, however, doesn’t seem to be a concern of those calling for continuing, robust population growth with no endpoint in sight. The unsustainability and critical consequences of long-term population growth are typically ignored, dismissed or trivialized.
Instead of getting caught up with population decline hysteria and Ponzi demography, it’s prudent, instructive and advisable to review the past growth of China’s population, examine its likely future growth, and consider some of the major challenges posed by those expected demographic changes.
China’s population of 1.4126 billion people in 2022, which represents 18 percent of the world’s total, grew rapidly during the recent past. In 1950 the Chinese population was slightly more than a half a billion. China’s one billion population milestone was reached in 1981. By the close of the 20th century, China’s population had grown to approximately 1.3 billion by (Figure 1).
Source: United Nations.
China’s future population over the coming decades depends largely on the course of the country’s fertility rate. If its fertility rate of 1.18 births per woman were to remain constant at its current level, the Chinese population at midcentury is projected to decline to 1.28 billion, a decrease of about 10 percent.
The often-cited United Nations medium variant population projection assumes China’s fertility rate will increase slightly over the coming several decades, reaching 1.39 births per woman by 2050. If that were to occur, China’s population in 2050 is again projected to decline, reaching 1.31 billion.
Under the UN high variant population projection, China’s fertility rate is a half child higher than medium variant, i.e., 1.89 births per woman by 2050. The high variant projection results in China’s population in 2050 remaining essentially unchanged at its current size of 1.41 billion.
Alternatively, fertility in the UN low variant population projection is a half child lower than the medium variant, i.e., 0.89 births per woman by 2050. The expected 2050 population of China in the low variant projection is 1.22 billion, a decrease of 15 percent from its current population.
China is not alone in its low fertility rate. Approximately 100 countries worldwide have a fertility rate below the replacement level of 2.1 births per woman.
Moreover, the fertility rates of some thirty countries in 2022 were less than 1.5 births per woman. Several of those countries had fertility rates that were roughly half or less than the replacement level, including China, Italy and South Korea, and consequently are confronting population decline (Figure 2).
Source: United Nations.
The low fertility rates of today, including China’s, are expected to increase somewhat in the coming decades. However, despite the desires, policies, and programs of governments to raise fertility levels, expectations of a return to replacement level fertility in the foreseeable future can be simply described as future fertility fantasies. Consequently, the current populations of some 50 countries, including China’s, are projected to be smaller by midcentury.
In addition to population decline, China as well as many other low fertility countries are experiencing demographic ageing. The median age of China’s population is expected to continue rising during the 21st century. China’s median age increased from 18 years in 1970 to nearly 39 years today. By 2070 the median age of China’s population is expected to be 55 years, or three times the median age of the population in 1970.
Besides its expected population decline, demography ageing presents a major challenge for China. The consequences of the demographic realities of older population age structures with declining numbers of young workers supporting growing numbers of the elderly are likely unavoidable.
Consequently, careful rethinking, comprehensive evaluations and major adjustments, some likely to be unpopular with the public such as raising the official retirement age, will be needed.
In addition to China, many countries with below replacement fertility are expected to face declining populations and older age structures over the coming decades. In contrast, many other countries, especially in Africa, with fertility levels of more than four births per woman are expected to have rapidly increasing populations and relatively young age structures throughout the century.
The net result of these substantial country differences in future population growth rates is that the world’s current population of 8 billion is projected to continue increasing. Over the next forty years, the world’s population is expected to add another 2 billion people, reaching 10 billion around 2058.
So, in conclusion, it’s time to stop fostering population decline hysteria with its doom and gloom and promoting Ponzi demography of unsustainable, continued robust population growth. It’s time to recognize, understand and analyze today’s demographics and their likely trends over the coming decades. And also importantly, it’s time for countries to prepare for the formidable challenges of their respective expected demographic realities in the 21st century.
Joseph Chamie is a consulting demographer, a former director of the United Nations Population Division and author of numerous publications on population issues, including his recent book, “Population Levels, Trends, and Differentials”.
The median ages of populations are expected to continue rising over the coming decades. East Nanjing Road, Shanghai, China. Credit: Shutterstock.
Opinion by Joseph Chamie (portland, usa)
Inter Press Service
PORTLAND, USA, Jan 16 (IPS) – Demography doesn’t care about such things as national strikes over pension retirement ages, public protests about contraception and abortion rights, sexual orientation, habits and preferences, political ideology and party affiliation, dress codes and head coverings, and religious identity, beliefs and practices.
Demography is basically about the mathematics of human populations, i.e., births, deaths, migrations, ageing, morbidity, sex ratios, mobility, size, change, growth, distribution, density, structure, composition, life expectancies, biological, social and economic characteristics, etc.
Demography is relatively straightforward, visible and equitable. For example, in every human population a person is born an infant at age zero, ages one year every twelve months, and eventually over time faces death, too often earlier rather than later unfortunately.
Between birth and death, a wide variety of demographic phenomena or transitions typically occur in human populations. Among them are surviving infancy and childhood, passing through puberty, finding a mate, having offspring, migrating to another place, falling ill or becoming disabled, and experiencing ageing.
Over the many centuries of human history, the interactions of those various demographic phenomena and transitions have resulted in today’s world population of 8,000,000,000. That extraordinary number of human beings now inhabiting planet Earth is due in large part to the record-breaking rapid growth of world population during the 20th century.
World population reached the one billion milestone at the start of the 19th century in 1804. The 20th century then ushered in what turned out to be the century of rapid demographic growth. World population nearly quadrupled from 1.6 billion at the start of the 20th century to 6.1 billion by the century’s close (Figure 1).
Source: United Nations.
In addition to that unprecedented rapid demographic growth, the world’s annual rate of population growth peaked at 2.3 percent in 1963. Also, by 1990 the world’s annual population increase reached a record high of 93 million.
The unprecedented growth of world population that took place during the 20th century was simply the result of births greatly outnumbering deaths with mortality rates dropping rapidly, especially during the second half of the past century.
The world’s fertility rate in the 1960s, for example, was about five births per woman and births outnumbered deaths by nearly three to one in the 1980s. Life expectancy at birth increased dramatically, increasing from about 45 years in the middle of the 20th century to about 65 years by the end of the century.
The current demographic situation for the world is different from the exceptional rates, levels and changes of the past century. For example, the growth rate of world population in 2021 was about 0.8 percent, or nearly one-third the peak level in 1963.
In addition, the annual increase of world population in 2021 was about 68 million, or about three-fourths the level in 1990. Also, the median age of the world’s population, which was about 20 years in 1970, has increased by 50 percent, reaching 30 years in 2022.
The world’s fertility rate is now about 2.3 births per woman, or about half the level 60 years ago. In addition, approximately 100 countries have a total fertility rate below the replacement level of 2.1 births per woman.
Furthermore, the fertility rates of some thirty countries in 2021 were less than 1.5 births per woman. Several of those countries had fertility rates that were approximately half or less than the replacement level, including China at 1.16, Singapore at 1.12 and South Korea at 0.81 (Chart 1).
Source: United Nations.
As a result of below replacement fertility rates, the current populations of some 60 countries are expected to be smaller by 2070. The total population decline of those countries over the next 50 years is projected to be more than a half a billion. Among the countries with the largest declines in their populations are China (-340 million), Japan (-35 million), Russia (-22 million), South Korea (-16 million) and Italy (-15 million).
In addition, many countries are expected to experience substantial declines in the relative size of their populations. Many of those countries are projected to have population declines of 10 percent or more over the coming four decades. For example, the relative decline in population size is expected to be 22 percent for Japan, 21 percent for South Korea and 18 percent for Italy (Figure 2).
Source: United Nations.
At the other extreme, the populations of two dozen countries, accounting for nearly 10 percent of the world’s population, are expected to more than double by 2060. Those projected population increases by 2060 include 106 percent in Afghanistan, 109 percent in Sudan, 113 percent in Uganda, 136 percent in Tanzania, 142 percent in Angola, 147 percent in Somalia, 167 percent in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, and 227 percent in Niger (Figure 3).
Source: United Nations.
In addition to the projected decline and growth of national populations, the age structures of countries worldwide are expected to become substantially older. Many countries have attained median ages in 2020 above 40 years, such as France at 41 years, South Korea at 43 years, Italy at 46 years and Japan at 48 years.
The median ages of populations are expected to continue rising over the coming decades. The median age for the world, for example, is expected to increase from 30 years today to close to 40 years by 2070. In some countries, including China, Italy, Japan and South Korea, the median ages of their populations by 2070 are projected to be 55 years or older.
Demographic ageing in the 21st century constitutes a major challenge for societies and economies. The consequences of the demographic realities of older population age structures and increasing human longevity are likely unavoidable.
In particular, the ageing of populations is contributing to strains on fiscal revenues and spending on pensions and healthcare for the elderly. Despite the ageing of populations and increases in human longevity, official retirement ages for government pension benefits have remained largely unchanged at comparatively low ages.
In France, for example, the official pension retirement age is 62 years, which is well below the retirement ages of many other developed countries. Despite criticisms, protests and a scheduled national strike from worker unions and leftist opponents, the French government has unveiled a pension overhaul that proposes gradually raise the retirement age to 64 years by 2030.
Also, a mounting crisis for a growing number of countries worldwide is illegal immigration. Neither governments nor international agencies have been able to come up with sensible policies and effective programs to address the mounting illegal immigration crisis.
A major factor behind the rise of illegal immigration is the large and growing supply of men, women and children in sending countries who want to migrate to another country and by any means possible, including illegal immigration. The number of people in the world wanting to migrate to another country is estimated at nearly 1.2 billion.
In conclusion, too often many choose to ignore, deny or dismiss today’s demographic realities, such as population growth and decline, demographic aging, declining fertility, rising life expectancy and increasing illegal immigration.
Rather than acknowledging, addressing and adjusting to the challenging consequences of the demographic realities of the 21st century, many are turning to protests, strikes, demonstrations, and balderdash. Demography, however, simply doesn’t care about such things.
Joseph Chamie is a consulting demographer, a former director of the United Nations Population Division and author of numerous publications on population issues, including his recent book, “Births, Deaths, Migrations and Other Important Population Matters.”
Africa needs to urgently invest in health programmes to reduce maternal deaths, which is more than five times above the 2030 SDG target of fewer than 70 maternal deaths per 100 000 live births. Measures include ensuring women access to skilled birth attendants. Credit: Ernest Ankomah/IPS
by Francis Kokutse (accra)
Inter Press Service
ACCRA, Jan 03 (IPS) – As the effects of COVID-19 on Africa’s health sector become clearer, it looks the continent will need to take urgent steps to overcome the disruptions suffered in the breakdown in antenatal and postnatal care for women and newborns and neonatal intensive care units. The pandemic brought some setbacks to the gains achieved in maternal mortality over the past decade.
Consequently, the continent needs to race against time to improve its health sector to meet the Sustainable Development Goals against the backdrop of a new report, the Atlas of Health Statistics 2022, which called for increased investment to avert the growing number in maternal mortality across the continent.
The report said that inadequate investment in health and funding for programmes were some of the major drawbacks to meeting the SDG in the sector.
“For example, a 2022 WHO survey of 47 African countries found that the region has a ratio of 1.55 health workers (physicians, nurses, and midwives) per 1000 people, below the WHO threshold density of 4.45 health workers per 1000 people needed to deliver essential health services and achieve universal health coverage.”
It noted that 65% of births in Africa are attended by skilled health personnel – the lowest globally and far off the 2030 target of 90%, adding that “skilled birth attendants are crucial for the well-being of women and newborns. Neonatal deaths account for half of all under-5 mortality. Accelerating the agenda to meet its reduction goal will be a major step toward reducing the under-5 mortality rate to fewer than 25 deaths per 1000 live births.”
The Ghanaian authorities might have taken note of the trend last year and launched a national campaign to avert all preventable deaths related to pregnancy dubbed “Zero Tolerance for Maternal Deaths.”
Director of the Ghana Health Service (GHS), Dr Patrick Kuma-Aboagye, said the campaign was to remove all barriers and unfair treatments that increased the vulnerability of pregnant women and girls to maternal mortality and also push those with unintended pregnancies to indulge in unsafe abortions and other risky action.
Kuma-Aboagye said the campaign was critical to accelerating the decline of maternal mortality from 308 out of every 1,000 live births to 70 by 2030, in line with the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). “The slow decline in maternal mortality in Ghana is of great concern to the Ministry of Health, the GHS, and its partners.”
Reacting to the Atlas report, WHO Regional Director for Africa, said Dr Matshidiso Moeti, said: “This means that for many African women, childbirth remains a persistent risk and millions of children do not live long enough to celebrate their fifth birthday.”
She asked governments to take note.
“It is crucial that governments make a radical course correction, surmount the challenges, and speed up the pace towards the health goals. These goals aren’t mere milestones, but the very foundations of a healthier life and well-being for millions of people.”
The report estimated that, in sub-Saharan Africa, 390 women will die in childbirth for every 100 000 live births by 2030. This is more than five times above the 2030 SDG target of fewer than 70 maternal deaths per 100 000 live births and much higher than the average of 13 deaths per 100 000 live births witnessed in Europe in 2017.
“It is more than double the global average of 211. To reach the SDG target, Africa will need an 86% reduction from 2017 rates, the last time data was reported, an unrealistic feat at the current rate of decline,” the report said.
The region’s infant mortality rate is 72 per 1000 live births. At the current 3.1% annual rate of decline, there will be an expected 54 deaths per 1000 live births by 2030, far above the reduction target of fewer than 25 per 1000.
The report assessed nine targets related to the Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) on health and found that at the current pace, increased investment is needed to accelerate progress on the targets. Among the most difficult to achieve will be reducing maternal mortality.
Physician and chief executive officer of Medway Health, Dr Omotuyi Mebawondu, has expressed concern that despite the worldwide reduction in maternal mortality rate, sub–Saharan Africa still accounts for two third of an average of 800 daily deaths of women from pregnancy and its complications.
Mebawondu said one of the key interventions is to ensure that pregnant women have access to antenatal care principally to identify danger signals early and enjoy delivery with the assistance of skilled birth attendants.
Accordingly, he has suggested that another way of reducing maternal mortality is to look into the use of technology. “The challenge of human resources for health in sub-Saharan Africa imposes a great responsibility on policymakers to explore technology in delivering health interventions to hard-to-reach populations.
Mebawondu said this must be preceded by adequate internet penetration and access, especially in rural areas, as such technology will help update and upgrade the health workers’ skills and educate the women on the challenges of pregnancy.
“A database of all pregnant women in poor rural localities must be collated and followed up through such technology. In addition, technology can be used to enhance emergency response to common causes of maternal deaths like bleeding, sepsis, and eclampsia. It can also be used to deliver most needed family planning services,” he said.
Good governance and strong institutions enhance a country’s ability to mobilize domestic resources through revenue collection. Credit: UN-OSAA
Opinion by Kavazeua Katjomuise (united nations)
Inter Press Service
The writer is a Senior Economic Affairs Officer and leader of the Policy Analysis and Coordination team in the UN Office of the Special Adviser on Africa (UN – OSAA).
UNITED NATIONS, Jan 02 (IPS) – I recently overheard a conversation among three young people at a café in an African city. It was a passionate discussion on the management of funds allocated to the COVID-19 response and the effectiveness of the mechanisms in place to manage the money to achieve the intended purposes.
The concerns of my young brothers and sister resonated with me, as I could not help but reflect on how COVID-19 exposed cracks in Africa’s fragile revenue institutions and contributed to widening the financing gap for the region’s development.
Weak institutions, especially revenue collection and customs authorities, are a challenge in Africa, which loses billions in potential tax revenue, including through tax avoidance and evasion, especially by multinational companies.
UNCTAD’s Economic Development Report 2020 says Africa lost $88.6 billion through illicit financial flows in 2019.
This undermines efforts to mobilize domestic resources to finance the continent’s development as outlined in the United Nation’s 2030 Agenda and African Union Agenda 2063, which both recognize the primacy of strong and effective institutions in driving sustainable development.
African countries fare poorly on domestic resource mobilization compared to other developing countries. The share of revenue to gross domestic product (GDP) in 2020 averaged 16 per cent for Africa, compared to 35 per cent for Asia-Pacific, and 24 per cent for Latin American Countries. Africa’s Least Developed Countries fared even lower at 13.3 per cent.
Governance influences tax revenue collection considerably in Africa. Good governance and strong institutions – measured through regulatory quality, the enforcement of the rule of law, strong institutional capacity and lower corruption – enhance a country’s ability to mobilize domestic resources through revenue collection.
However, corruption erodes tax compliance. Citizens in countries with high corruption are reluctant to pay taxes because of the perception that resources will be misused.
Empirical evidence shows that countries with a low Corruption Perception Index (CPI) score collected 4.3 per cent more in tax revenue to GDP than those with a high CPI score (2).
Addressing governance issues and improving transparency in the use of public resources is vital to building trust and generating increased domestic resources. Efforts should be geared at supporting African countries to strengthen governance and tackle corruption.
Digitization
Technological improvements and digitization could be leveraged to improve scale and efficiency and prevent corruption through increased transparency.
The pace toward digitization on the continent has quickened in recent years, particularly in the wake of COVID-19. Before the pandemic, Africa recorded progress toward digitization, albeit driven by the private sector mainly through incubators, start-ups, technological hubs and data centres.
Digitization is already transforming African economies in several ways, such as revolutionizing retail payment systems, thus allowing consumers and businesses to save billions in transaction costs, facilitating financial inclusion, and enhancing the efficiency of fiscal and revenue administration.
For example, the launch of M-Shwari in Kenya increased access to financial services for millions who may otherwise have been excluded from the financial sector. Taking advantage of this trend, the Kenya Revenue Authority (KRA) introduced electronic banking in 2016 to expedite the payment of taxes through secure electronic payment.
This, coupled with the launch of iTax, has enabled a single view of taxpayer information, allowing for real-time monitoring of revenue collection, thus improving the efficiency of payment to government suppliers and social protection grants.
Digitization has also enabled developed countries to build effective and robust Digital Rights Management (DRM) systems, critical to ensuring Africa’s recovery from COVID-19.
However, despite the widespread adoption of digital technologies across the world, the digital divide excludes many African countries from the benefits of digital technology.
Digitizing tax administration in Africa has been relatively slow. An International Monetary Fund’s analysis (ISORA 2018: Understanding Revenue Administration) shows that, relative to other developing regions, African countries scored below the world average on almost all indices related to tax administration performance, especially on the degree of digitization.
The average score for the degree of digitization was 29 per cent for Africa compared to 49 per cent and 46 per cent for Latin America and the Caribbean as well as East Asia Pacific, respectively.
The COVID-19 pandemic contributed to an erosion of tax collection in Africa due to a lack of digitization, as countries could not fully work remotely. This underscores the urgency of investing in the digitalization of tax collection processes, paired with other digitization initiatives such as digital identification, digital finance, and electronic payment systems.
Evidence shows that enhanced tax collection has followed the introduction of ICTs, including the computerization of tax and customs administration to support tax payments.
Countries that have modernized and digitized tax revenue administration have benefited from increased revenue due to improved efficiency, reduced corruption through enhanced transparency, and increased tax compliance.
COVID-19 provides an opportunity for African governments to embrace digitization by leveraging information and communications technology (ICT) as well as mobile technology.
Increased mobile penetration is an opportunity for African countries to digitize their fiscal and revenue administration. Development partners can support African countries in bolstering DRM systems by channeling substantial Official Development Assistance (ODA) towards strengthening capacities and institutions, including tax authorities, to improve tax collection.
By digitizing fiscal and revenue collection institutions and modernizing customs systems, African countries can build robust systems and overcome the challenge of weak institutions.
This would help enhance African countries’ ability to address tax evasion and avoidance, tackle money laundering and tax havens, and curtail Base Erosion and Profit Sharing (BEPS).
Development partners and international organizations can increase support to Africa to strengthen its capacity for tax assessment, including through training, mentorship and coaching.
Complementary measures are also necessary to enhance African countries’ capacity to enact and implement policies and legislation to tackle BEPS and transfer pricing, starting with a comprehensive review of all tax treaties, tax incentives, and trade and investment agreements to eliminate all loopholes for BEPS and other IFFs.
This is central to de-risking Africa’s fiscal space for long-term sustainable development in the post-pandemic era.
In conclusion, building strong institutions through digitizing key institutions, especially revenue authorities, is critical to boosting domestic resource mobilization systems.
By digitizing fiscal and revenue collection institutions and modernizing customs systems, African countries can build robust DRM systems and overcome the challenge of weak institutions.
Over the past fifty years the world’s life expectancy at birth increased by 16 years, i.e., from 56 in 1970 to 72 in 2020. Credit: Maricel Sequeira/IPS
by Joseph Chamie (portland, usa)
Inter Press Service
PORTLAND, USA, Dec 23 (IPS) – Despite the objections, resistance and protests taking place in many countries around the world, raising the official retirement age to receive government provided pension benefits is coming soon.
The primary reason for raising the official retirement age is the rapidly rising costs of national old-age pension programs, which are mainly the result of two powerful global demographic trends: population ageing and increased human longevity.
The age structures of populations worldwide are becoming older than ever before. Over the past half century, for example, the median age of the world’s population has increased by 10 years, i.e., from 20 years in 1970 to 30 years in 2020. Many countries have attained median ages in 2020 well above 35 years, such as France at 41 years, South Korea at 43 years, Italy at 46 years and Japan at 48 years (Figure 1).
Source: United Nations.
Moreover, the median ages of populations are expected to continue rising over the coming decades. The median age for the world, for example, is expected to reach close to 40 years by 2070. Also in some countries, including China, Italy, Japan and South Korea, the median ages of their populations by 2070 are projected to be 55 years or older.
The pace of changes in the population age structures of China and South Korea are particularly noteworthy. In 1970 their populations had a median age of 18 years, i.e., half of their populations were children. By 2070 the median ages of China’s and South Korea’s populations are expected to triple to 55 and 61 years, respectively, with the proportion of children declining to 12 and 10 percent, respectively.
Many countries will see their elderly population increase rapidly, reaching about one-third of their total populations by midcentury. In addition, by 2070 the proportion aged 65 years and older in some countries, such as China, Italy, Japan, South Korea and Spain, are expected to be approximately 40 percent.
In addition to markedly older population age structures, life expectancies have increased significantly during the recent past with both men and women living longer than ever before. For example, over the past fifty years the world’s life expectancy at birth increased by 16 years, i.e., from 56 in 1970 to 72 in 2020.
The gains in life expectancies at birth for some countries were even more impressive, with increases of more than 20 years during the past five decades. Again, the gains in life expectancy achieved by China and South Korea are particularly noteworthy. China’s life expectancy at birth increased by 21 years, i.e., from 57 years in 1970 to 78 years in 2020, and South Korea’s increased by 22 years, i.e., from about 62 years in 1970 to 84 years in 2020.
Moreover, the life expectancies of the elderly have also increased over the recent past. At age 65, for example, the world’s average life expectancy increased by four years, from 13 years in 1970 to 17 years in 2020. And in many developed countries, including Canada, Italy, France, Germany, Italy and Japan, life expectancies at age 65 years have reached 20 years or more (Figure 2).
Source: United Nations.
Some of the largest gains in life expectancies at age 65 years have been in East Asia. For example, gains in China, South Korea and Japan were 7, 8 and 9 years, respectively, resulting in life expectancies at age 65 of 18, 22 and 23 years, respectively. In other words, people in those countries on average can expect to live to ages 83, 87 and 88 years, respectively.
Despite the recent setbacks in life expectancies due to deaths from the COVID-19 pandemic, life expectancies of the elderly are expected to continue rising throughout the remainder of the 21st century. For example, by 2070 the world is projected to have an average life expectancy at age 65 of 21 years. Also, many developed countries by that time are expected to have life expectancies at age 65 of 25 years or more, i.e., people surviving on average to age 90.
Even with the ageing of populations and increases in human longevity, official retirement ages in order to receive government pension benefits have remained largely unchanged at relatively low levels, typically below 65 years. For example, the official retirement age in France and South Korea is 62 years and in Brazil and Russia the retirement age is also 62 for men, 57 years for women (Figure 3).
Source: OECD.
However, some countries are now proposing to raise their retirement ages. China, for example, recognizing its rapidly ageing population, shrinking labor force and its national pension’s expected insolvency by 2035, has said that over the next five years it would gradually delay the legal retirement ages, which have been unchanged for more than 70 years.
Despite public objections in the past, China took an initial step several months ago to raise its current retirement age, which is 60 for men and 55 for white-collar women workers and 50 for blue-collar women workers. In one of its eastern provinces people were permitted to start voluntarily applying for delayed retirement.
Also, the French government, remarking “vivre plus longtemps, travailler plus longtemps”, has proposed that beginning in 2023 the minimum retirement age to receive a full pension be gradually increased from today’s 62 to 65 by 2031. Although previous proposals were shelved due to nationwide strikes, the French government has said that without those proposed changes a decrease in the size of pensions would be needed.
One OECD country, the United States, was among the earliest in legislating an increase in the official retirement age to 67 years to receive full benefits, which is above the current average age for OECD countries. Also, seven OECD countries have introduced linkages between life expectancy and retirement age.
In addition to being unpopular among the general public, raising the official retirement age is an issue that governments are not eager to address. Typically, government officials remain silent on the issue and postpone making decisions regarding projected financial shortfalls in national retirement programs.
In the United States, for example, the Social Security Board of Trustees in its 2022 annual report concluded that if no changes are made, the program will not be able to meet its financial responsibilities by 2035. Although various political statements have been made by government officials, the U.S. Congress has yet to propose the needed legislation to address Social Security’s projected insolvency in a dozen years.
In general, the three major options available to governments to address pension insolvency are: reduce benefits, increase taxes and raise retirement age. Reducing benefits, however, would create financial difficulties for many of the elderly. Increasing taxes is also unlikely to be well received by today’s workers and business communities. Consequently, raising the retirement age may be the least objectionable option to address projected pension insolvencies.
The consequences of the demographic realities of older population age structures and increasing longevity are unavoidable. In particular, those consequences include: decreasing numbers in the labor force per retired person: increasing proportions in old age who are living longer; and rising costs for old age retirement benefits that threaten the solvency of the national programs.
In sum, raising the retirement age addresses many of the consequences of those seismic demographic changes as well as expands the size of the labor force, provides additional years for workers to save for retirement, and deals with the projected insolvencies of government pension programs.
Joseph Chamie is a consulting demographer, a former director of the United Nations Population Division and author of numerous publications on population issues, including his recent book, “Births, Deaths, Migrations and Other Important Population Matters.”
UNITED NATIONS, Dec 12 (IPS) – The digital divide – between the world’s rich and poor nations —remains staggeringly wide.
For over 2.7 billion people, many of them living in developing and least developed countries (LDCs), meaningful connectivity remains elusive, according to a UN report released during the 17th Internet Governance Forum in Addis Ababa, last month.
“Bridging the gap will be a catalyst for advancing an open, free, secure and inclusive Internet, and achieving the 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) “
Africa is one of the regions which is the least connected, with 60 per cent of the population offline, due to a combination of lack of access, affordability and skills training.
Africa’s burgeoning youth population, however, holds the key to transforming the region’s digital future. There is immense potential in empowering youth to thrive in a digital economy and leapfrogging technologies, says the UN.
UN Secretary-General António Guterres says. “With the right policies in place, digital technology can give an unprecedented boost to sustainable development, particularly for the poorest countries”.
This calls for more connectivity; and less digital fragmentation. More bridges across digital divides; and fewer barriers. Greater autonomy for ordinary people; less abuse and disinformation, he declared.
While COVID-19 accelerated digital transformation in some sectors like health and education, it also exacerbated various forms of digital inequality, running deep along social and economic lines, says the UN report.
Globally, more men use the Internet (at 62 per cent compared with 57 per cent of women). And in nearly all countries where data are available, rates of Internet use are higher for those with more education.
Besides the digital divide– between the world’s “haves and have-nots”– there is also a marked increase in “gender divide”. In Africa, only 21 % of women have access to the Internet. The gender divide starts early as Internet use is four times greater for boys than for girls.
Emma Gibson, the Campaign Lead, Universal Digital Rights, for Equality Now, told IPS challenges in our digital society, including unequal access to digital technology and platforms, online gender-based and sexual violence, internet shutdowns, and AI and algorithmic biases, profoundly affected those with the least power and privilege.
“Women, children, and people in other groups facing discrimination are all disproportionately impacted”, she said.
“Widespread patriarchy and misogyny found in the physical world are being replicated, exacerbated, and facilitated in the digital realm, with violence against women and children perpetrated online on a huge scale”.
Offenders are rarely held to account, and this is unsurprising considering that there is currently no universal standard for ending online sexual exploitation and abuse.
“From the explosion in online violence towards women and girls to the threats posed by internet shutdowns, it is clear that there is an urgent need to bring in a new global agreement to protect our human rights in the digital world”.
“All of us have a right to safety, freedom, and dignity in the digital space, and the Internet needs to work in our interests, not against them”, declared Gibson.
The increase in Internet use has also paved the way for the proliferation of its dark side, with the rampant spread of misinformation, disinformation and hate speech, the regular occurrence of data breaches, and an increase in cybercrimes, according to the UN.
“Access Now and the #KeepItOn coalition documented 182 Internet shutdowns in 34 countries in 2021, an increase from 159 shutdowns recorded in 29 countries in 2020, demonstrating the power governments have in controlling information in the digital space.”
The theme of Addis Ababa Forum, “Resilient Internet for a Shared Sustainable and Common Future”, called for collective actions and a shared responsibility to connect all people and safeguard human rights; avoid Internet fragmentation; govern data and protect privacy; enable safety, security and accountability; and address advanced digital technologies.
“The Internet is the platform that will accelerate progress towards the SDGs. Our collective task is to unleash the power and potential of a resilient Internet for our shared sustainable and common future,” said Li Junhua, United Nations Under-Secretary-General for Economic and Social Affairs, during the Internet Governance Forum.
Gibson of Equality Now said in developing solutions, it is important to acknowledge the continuum of injustices, power imbalances, and gendered violence that predate technology and which manifest and multiply online.
The root causes of these need to be addressed when developing and implementing policies to ensure universal, secure, and safe access for all.
“A human-centered and resilient digital future not only includes ensuring affordable access but meaningful and secure access to digital technologies.”
“We need a universal approach to defining, upholding, and advancing digital rights so that everyone has universal equality of safety, freedom, and dignity in our digital future,” she noted.
